The Journey of Our Lives
by paintedpinkpuffs
Summary: After Karai's attack and Leonardo's return, the turtles go through the wreckage of their old home. Splinter finds a treasure and remembers his years as a father. Little turtle story, mostly. Winner of TMNT Fanfiction Competition 2009 Best Chibi award.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Lengthwise, this is the biggest failure I've ever committed. This story was supposed to be eight pages long; needless to say, it's not. I also feel a little bad for Donatello, because his section is shorter than his brothers' sections. That's just the way it happened, though… the sections just got longer as I went through, and I don't have the energy to fix it now. He's still in everyone else's sections, though.

Premise: This story takes place during the fourth season of the 2003 4kids television series, ostensibly after Leonardo has returned from training with the Ancient One, rescued his family, beaten Karai and they've relocated from the old lair. While packing up the few things that can be saved, Splinter finds a treasure from earlier times that reminds him of anecdotes surrounding his sons' childhood.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

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Another moonless New York night.

Not that the moonlight would have made much difference down in the sewers. It was all the streetlights along Fifth Avenue could do to struggle down through the manhole covers, spearing the gloom of the city's silent underworld, and even they caught little more than glimpses of shadows. Five shadows, to be exact—five shadows bending and twisting their way back through familiar tunnels in as near as shadows could get to absolute silence. Which was fairly close; except for the ghost whispers of leathery feet on damp concrete, the flashes of skin flitting through the storm drains might have been a trick of the lamplight, nothing more.

Farther down and father in the shadows traveled, winding their way deeper into the tangle of pipes and catacombs that rested like the limbs of a great slumbering monster under the skyscrapers of the sleepless city. They didn't pause to breathe, or to rest; they didn't stop at all until they reached the mouth of a great opening in the dark, an ill-cut hole in the layers of rock and concrete. Then one shadow touched a spot on the wall, and the lights came up in the ransacked corpse of what had once been a dwelling, the feeble illumination barely distinguishing the lair's visitors from the piles of rubble strewn across its floor.

The shadow that was Michelangelo let out a low whistle, leaning back on his heels to take in the damage. "Did somebody get the license plate on that demolition team that went through here?" he joked, surveying the toppled pillars and fraying furniture that had once composed a living room. "We've gotta talk to the Foot about making house calls."

From the other side of the jumbled space, Raphael kicked a battered old saucepan, adding one more unnecessary dent to its pockmarked surface. "Not the first time, won't be the last," he grunted, twisting one fist in his palm. "Not until we take care of the root of the problem."

"We did, remember?" Donatello said, carefully inspecting the saucepan his brother had assaulted before tossing it back into the rubble. Raphael crossed his arms.

"Fine. I guess I meant the new root, then."

From his position at the center of the group, Leonardo looked up at the ruined ceiling, his eyes hardening with the memory of their most recent adversary. "Karai."

For a moment, that name was enough to settle the five shadows in their scattered formation, stirring the echoes of battle that were still buried amongst the rubble. Then Donatello shrugged, a handspring carrying him into the ruins of his lab.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now. Let's just salvage what we can from here and get everything back to the lake before somebody decides to check up on this place," he suggested, tossing aside a coil of open wires. Leonardo nodded.

"Right. Let's get to it."

With this final command, four shadows leapt into motion. From his place in the shattered doorway, the fifth shadow watched them without speaking. Then Master Splinter too began to move, heading toward the nook where his sanctuary had been, step by patient step.

"Aw, man! Just look what they did to the entertainment center!" The methodical silence was broken by an agitated crash, and a crushed television set toppled into the center of the lair, Michelangelo's shout chasing its heels. "There's no salvaging any of this."

Donatello frowned at him, vaulting up to land beside his brother and rescuing an unbroken screen out of the television graveyard. "Watch it, Mikey. I might be able to pull a few good capacitors out of these."

"Who wants a capacitor?" Michelangelo demanded, throwing his hands up. "You can't watch cartoons on that."

Leonardo sighed as he reentered the room with an armful of blankets, sending one mild glare in the direction of his squabbling siblings. "Let's stay focused, guys. Concentrate on the essentials."

"What could be more essential than television?" Michelangelo raised one hand, counting down on his fingers. "Food, sleep, TV—that's Mikey's pyramid of needs. Actually, the sleep's optional. A day without TV is like a day without sunshine, Leo—like macaroni without the cheese! Like Raph without the ugly—ow!"

A dull slap echoed against the ruined walls, and Master Splinter shook his head. Though his sons were out of sight now behind him, it was easy to guess who had interrupted Michelangelo's protest—easier again when a deep voice followed the echo.

"Can it, Mikey."

Raphael. But then, it had always been Raphael.

On feet that training no less than nature had made silent, Master Splinter picked his way across the once smooth floor, his gaze drifting from one desecrated object to another. The Foot had been thorough—Karai's anger had made her cruel, and those parts of the lair that might have been untouched by the battle itself seemed to have been deliberately pillaged. It was impossible to mistake the rage that had dug its claws into the solid rock walls of their home; rage that had left so little untouched in its wildfire burn.

"No way! Not my comics, too!"

"I've got a feeling your comics weren't at the top of Karai's hit list, Mikey."

No. But it was a symbol nonetheless of how complete the destruction had been. They would be starting from scratch again—as so many had already done in pursuit of this ancient enemy.

The chatter of his sons' voices faded into the background as Master Splinter stepped carefully over the fragments of the paper doors that had once protected his sanctuary. Just across the threshold, he dropped into a kneel, brushing the shards of Master Yoshi's crystal together with long, soft fingers. For a moment, the disjointed light lay deep across the broken glass, less a reflection than the fleeting memory of an image floating across its surface. Then there was a footstep behind him, and the illusion disappeared, banished by a change in the light or a break in the silence.

"Sensei? Do you need our help in here?"

Splinter glanced back to find Leonardo waiting beyond the tattered door, respecting the barricade even though it was no longer standing. Then he turned back to the disorder of his room, the torn cushions and rubbled stone, and shook his head.

"No, my son. This room I will do myself. Perhaps you should supervise your brothers. They seem to need your attention more than I do."

The old rat didn't have to look over his shoulder to know it was true—his keen ears could guess that the great squeaking suddenly resounding through the lair was Michelangelo careening unsteadily by on the remnants of something with wheels, and the racing steps after him would be Raphael, hot on his heels as usual. Leonardo's sigh confirmed his suspicions.

"Yes, Sensei."

He could almost hear the grimace in Leonardo's voice as he turned to rejoin the fray, just another note in the mayhem of raised voices and rushing feet. Splinter allowed himself a smile. Then he returned his focus to the task at hand and swept the crystal fragments into his palm, a few keepsakes for his pocket before the rest of the sorting began.

Pile by wounded pile, Splinter worked his way around the room, setting aside what few of his meager belongings had escaped the wrath of Karai's soldiers. A tattered book, an orphaned vase… Splinter lifted one half of a broken teapot and sighed to himself. The creeds of his profession and the life of his master had taught him how little value objects held within themselves; still, there was no denying the small edge of sadness that came with each realization of another ruined possession.

It was the memories, not the things, that brought him regret—for this teapot, a birthday long since past. But then, memories could be rebuilt. Everything of true importance had escaped the assault. Or, not everything. Everyone. And the lively voices of his sons, more like music than conversation as they rattled echoes from the lonely walls, were reminder enough of that to help him put the broken pottery down.

Splinter smiled a little. Perhaps next year he would receive another teapot.

Under the steady passage of busy hands, the pile of objects to be abandoned grew in one corner of the room, stacked as neatly as their ragged forms allowed. Splinter passed most of them with hardly a glance, or a dismissive sigh at most. But there was one treasure in the room waiting to be discovered—a treasure that, once it presented itself, even Master Splinter lacked the discipline to put down.

The book was small and slight, and it had worked its way to the deepest layers of destruction, so that when Splinter turned his attention to his toppled bookcase there was only one bright red corner visible beneath the tumble of torn pages. The color, uncharacteristic for his shelf, was enough to pique Splinter's curiosity; enough so that he dug it prematurely from the pile, being as gentle as he could with the well-worn tomes that had fallen almost protectively across it.

When at last the book came free of its fellows, one look at the cover was enough to put a smile on Splinter's aging face. It was an old, crumbling coloring book—one that had been meant for Michelangelo, if the very young Justice Force posing on the cover was any indication.

Dust and a long life crammed between the volumes of his meager book collection had made the pages sticky, as he discovered on trying to pry it open; and in spite of how gently the old rat pulled them apart, the binding disintegrated in his hands the moment that the edges began to separate, sending a flutter of multi-colored pages all over his halfway cleared floor.

Master Splinter set the skeleton of the book aside, sighing a little as he bent to collect the tapestry of pictures now spread around his feet. But it was not a tired sigh. And had there been anyone watching from the ruins of the doorway, it would have been impossible to miss the way he lingered in his collection of the pages, brushing fingers that time had made soft over these memories in physical form.

The pictures had no signatures, but they didn't need them. Everything about them was a signature in itself, a truer impression of the artists than any child's scrawl would have been.

The first had been neatly colored within the lines, with realistic colors for the superheroes and landscape decorating what an imprinted title proved to be the first page of the coloring book. Everything in the picture was based around a flat effectiveness—it lacked dynamic colors and there was no expansion on the provided forms, but it was as true to reality as simple crayons and simpler fingers could manage.

Master Splinter smiled. Why his youngest had been the first to use Michelangelo's coloring book, it wasn't hard to guess. Donatello had always been something of a particular child.

.x.

"Again, Leonardo."

Between the panting breaths that betrayed his exhaustion, the young turtle responded to his name, throwing his staff again into the sequence of twelve strikes he had been practicing. Splinter blocked each one with the body of his cane, his gaze flickering between the blows and the wide, determined eyes staring back at him between bands of sweat-marked blue. Splinter sidestepped a finishing thrust and tapped Leonardo's leg with his cane, watching as his pupil's knee buckled and he nearly lost his balance.

"Correct your stance. Again."

Leonardo opened his mouth as though to reply. But whether he thought better of it or simply lacked the air to form words, in the end the young turtle said nothing, only adjusting the bandana that was old enough to be showing signs of wear. Then Leonardo began again, his breaths growing sharper as fatigue kept pace with him.

Splinter nodded to himself. Exhaustion meant his student was trying his hardest. And the speed of his breathing meant it was nearly time for someone else's lesson. If only he could expect a similar work ethic from his other charges…

Over Leonardo's shoulder, Splinter took account of what his other sons were doing. At the moment, all three were splayed out on their stomachs around an enormous pile of blocks; it was perhaps a larger pile of blocks than seemed strictly necessary for three or even four young turtles, but his sons had shown an aggravating inability to share in the past. Raphael and Michelangelo were still in the early stages of constructing what looked like little more than a pair of haphazard jumbles—perhaps unsurprising, given the brief time since Raphael's own lesson and Michelangelo's short attention span. But Donatello, for his part, was working on a pyramid almost taller than his seated head, each side a mix of different color patterns.

"What's that ugly thing supposed to be?" Raphael asked, pointing a rude finger at Michelangelo's construction.

"It's a sculpture of you, Raph," Michelangelo answered with a grin, ducking the fist that missed his head but managed to topple his blocks on its way back home.

"Hey!" Michelangelo shouted, distracting both Splinter and Leonardo with the force of his outcry. The little turtle wrapped his arms around the scatter of blocks and pulled them into himself. "Now I've gotta start over."

"Try it, and I'll pound ya into turtle soup," Raphael threatened, waving a fist at his brother. Then he turned back to his own sculpture with a heavy glare, snatching a yellow block from the group pile.

As it happened, Donatello had been reaching for the exact same block. Splinter saw his eyes widen beneath his purple bandana, chubby baby hands pushing him to his feet.

"Raph, I need that block," Donatello said, holding out his hand. Raphael got to his feet as well and held the block over his head, using his superior height to keep it out of Donatello's reach.

"Oh, yeah? Well, finders keepers, losers weepers, Donny," Raphael taunted, his expression smug. "And I got it first. You gotta use another one."

"I can't'!" Donatello's voice was rising in volume and pitch with every word, drawing even more of Splinter's attention in his direction. The little turtle pointed at his towering pyramid, stomping one futilely angry foot. "I need one more yellow to finish this side, and that's the last one. Give it to me, Raph!"

Raphael did not give it to him. Instead the oldest of the turtles lifted one foot and gave Donatello's sculpture a hearty kick, sending the multicolored blocks skidding across the concrete floor.

"Now you don't need it, do ya?" Raphael sneered.

"Raphael!" Splinter scolded—but he was too late. The damage was done, and it was only a matter of seconds before Donatello burst into tears, running across the open floor of the practice area to bury his face in Splinter's robe.

Leonardo lowered his staff and turned to glare back at Raphael, a less intimidating form of the look Splinter himself was giving his eldest son. "Raphael," he repeated, patting Donatello's shoulder with his empty hand. Michelangelo danced to his feet, jeering his brother with an extended tongue.

"Way to go, you big bully. Raph made Donny cry—again!"

"It's not my fault he's a great big baby," Raphael growled, swiping at his nearest brother with a partial fist. But Splinter had closed the distance by this time, and he caught Raphael's hand mid-swing, bearing down on his son with eyes that were suddenly sharp.

"Raphael, this behavior is unacceptable. Apologize to your brothers. And as you are clearly suffering from an excess of energy, perhaps you would like to do another round of meditation in your room until supper is ready."

"Busted!" Michelangelo sang out. Leonardo crossed his arms over his chest, moving to stand next to Donatello at Splinter's side. But Raphael didn't budge.

"Who's apologizin'?" Raphael challenged, glaring back at his father with equal force. But Splinter knew too well that arguing with Raphael was a zero-sum game, and he turned his attention to Donatello instead, pressing a soothing hand against his shell. "Come, my son. It is time for your lesson in any case."

"No!" Donatello shook his head hard, his expression crumbling under his renewed unhappiness. "I don't want a lesson, Master Splinter. Not after what Raph did to my blocks!"

The anger that was still running rampant through Raphael's eyes found his tongue again. "See—Donny's nothing but a big baby!" Raphael accused, rounding on his youngest brother again. "He doesn't want a lesson. He just wants to play with his widdle blocks!"

"Shut up, Raph," Leonardo said, putting himself in front of Donatello. "Stop picking on him."

"Make me, teacher's pet!" Raphael yelled—then he saved his brother the trouble and launched himself at Leonardo, sending them backward into a squabbling, shouting pile.

"Raphael," Splinter scolded again, but his voice was barely audible in the chaos of angry voices and flailing limbs that had suddenly filled the lair. Michelangelo hooted as he jumped out of the way of his wrestling brothers, one fist in the air.

"It's a fight! Fight, fight!"

Donatello was still yanking on Splinter's sleeve. "Master—"

"Silence!"

Splinter did not often raise his voice to his children. When he did, the effect was immediate. Silence settled like an avalanche over the instantly still forms of his sons, as Donatello clamped his mouth shut and Leonardo and Raphael froze in their sparring tangle, two sets of eyes staring up at a tired old rat with a turtle-sized headache.

Four turtles, to be exact.

"Raphael," Splinter began, earning a hard swallow from his eldest son. "I believe I asked you to meditate in your room. Perhaps you would like to begin now."

He stared the young turtle down, watching the defiance slowly creep from Raphael's face until his son pushed himself away from Leonardo and stalked into his room. The door slammed behind him, and his master sighed, his gaze flickering between the blue masked turtle who remained on the practice ground and his orange-banded brother. Leonardo hung his head, not even waiting for a lecture.

"Sorry, Master Splinter."

Michelangelo just grinned. "What? I didn't do nothin'."

Splinter shook his head, unsurprised if not impressed with his next to youngest's attitude. Then he turned his stern eyes on Donatello, who was still clinging to his shirt with wide, tear-filled eyes.

"Donatello," Splinter started, his voice softening. "It is time for your lesson. Please—"

"No!" Splinter stopped abruptly at the outburst, swallowing back his words as Donatello pushed away from him, wiping one arm across his eyes. "I don't wanna practice, and I'm not gonna practice!" Donatello cried. And with that, the little turtle scampered away across the lair, slamming the door to the bathroom behind him.

Michelangelo whistled, jumping up to sit on the back of the couch and swinging his feet back and forth. "Donny's in a mood again," he crooned. Splinter shot him a short glare, and Leonardo smacked his brother's knee.

"Leonardo." The young turtle straightened at his name, looking almost sheepishly up at his exasperated father. Splinter closed his eyes. "I must deal with Donatello. Perhaps you could prepare Michelangelo for his lesson."

"Sure thing, Sensei," Leonardo said, looking a little relieved at the opportunity to redeem himself. Then he cocked his chin toward the practice area, glancing at his remaining brother. "Come on, Mikey."

"Dun dun dun! It's one on one with Master Leo!" Splinter turned away and headed toward the back of the lair, listening as Michelangelo leapt from the couch to land at his brother's feet. "Come on, Leo. Teach me something way cool. Like a double-roundhouse back flip with a leg sweep!"

"Let's just start with your kata, Mikey," the older turtle said, using a tone Splinter was certain he himself had taken with his most energetic son.

"Oh, man—for a minute there I almost forgot how boring you are, Leo."

That was the last of their conversation Splinter overheard before he knocked on the bathroom door, clearing his throat to summon his youngest son.

"Donatello."

"Go away!" Donatello yelled through the door. "I'm not coming out for my lesson!"

Splinter sighed, leaning back against the wall and listening for movement on the other side. "Michelangelo will take your lesson. I have not come about that. I have come to ask if I may lend you an ear."

There was a shift within—Donatello standing up, most likely—before the silence resumed. Then the door creaked open, just an inch, and without looking over Splinter could imagine Donatello's purple-framed face checking his expression through the crack. The old rat kept his gaze on the far wall. At last Donatello slipped from the bathroom and put his face into Splinter's stomach, reaching stubby arms around his father's waist.

"I made that, Sensei," the little turtle said, and Splinter could feel two damp patches of tears forming against his robe. "I made that all by myself, and Raph broke it. He always does. No matter what I make, it always gets broken. It's not fair."

Splinter put a hand on the young turtle's shoulder. "I understand your disappointment, Donatello. But the world is not without chaos—everything that is once created must be destroyed in time. The only solution is to create again."

Donatello looked up at him skeptically, and even his mask couldn't hide the wrinkles covering his forehead. "Not the blocks," he said bluntly, fisting six fingers into his master's shirt. Splinter swallowed his sigh.

"No, my son. Not the blocks. Come."

With that, Splinter led Donatello back across the lair and past the practice area—he would have to remind Michelangelo about his back stance later—until they entered his room. The little turtle watched curiously as his father rustled under the pile of sheets and pillows that served as his nest, digging out a coloring book and a set of children's crayons. Donatello looked dubiously at the book's cover.

"This is for Mikey," he guessed, pointing to the Justice Force in their heroic poses. Splinter shook his head.

"I am sure Michelangelo would not mind lending it to you for the time being," he returned gently. Donatello hugged the book to his chest, gripping the crayons in one tight hand.

"What about Raph?"

Splinter gave his son a look. "You do not need to worry about Raphael. I will deal with him." Then he laid a hand on Donatello's head, smoothing the creases of his bandana with a quiet hand. "All you have to worry about, my son, is continuing to create, no matter what the world may do with your creations."

This made Donatello smile at last, and he tucked his chin into the coloring book, keeping his eyes on his feet as he spoke.

"Um, Sensei? I think I'm ready for my lesson now."

Splinter chuckled. "I am certain your brothers will be pleased to hear that. Come—let us relieve Leonardo of Michelangelo, shall we?" And he walked out with one arm around Donatello's shoulders, leading the young turtle who had not quite torn his eyes from the coloring book yet.

_End Chapter 1_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Many thanks to the people who've read this; I hope you enjoyed it. Pressing on with Donatello's section.

Premise: This story takes place during the fourth season of the 2003 4kids television series, ostensibly after Leonardo has returned from training with the Ancient One, rescued his family, beaten Karai and they've relocated from the old lair. While packing up the few things that can be saved, Splinter finds a treasure from earlier times that reminds him of anecdotes surrounding his sons' childhood.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

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"_Um, Sensei? I think I'm ready for my lesson now."_

_Splinter chuckled. "I am certain your brothers will be pleased to hear that. Come—let us relieve Leonardo of Michelangelo, shall we?" And he walked out with one arm around Donatello's shoulders, leading the young turtle who had not quite torn his eyes from the coloring book yet._

Splinter found that he was chuckling again, here in the wreckage of their second home. Creation had always been Donatello's passion—and if the youngest of his sons had been a bit temperamental as a child, it was at least in part because Raphael could do nothing but destroy for the first years of his life.

Now that he knew what to look for, it was easy to tell Donatello's pictures apart from the others, and as he lifted each one it became more and more fitting to Splinter that Donatello had colored the first pages of the book. He had been first in a lot of things.

.x.

"I am home, children."

It seemed foolish to speak to ones who were too young to speak back—especially if those ones were turtles who might just as well never talk. Nonetheless, it was a habit Splinter was finding it difficult to break.

With a step as silent as his shadow's, Splinter moved into the lair, placing a crude bundle of food and supplies onto his table of crates by feel alone. Daylight was just breaking on the surface above, chasing shadows like himself back to the safety of the sewers—here the darkness was almost too complete even for his keen eyes. But then, it was the darkness that made this section of New York's underbelly ideal for the lair: far from the maintenance men, and the subway trains, where the distance and the darkness would protect the four young lives that had so recently fallen into his hands.

Splinter flicked on his tattered old lamp and stepped up to the simple cardboard box tucked up beside his bed, smiling to himself as he peered over the side. The turtles were still small, barely up to his knee and just beginning to crawl, but already their colors and behaviors were growing distinct in his eyes.

Here were Michelangelo and Raphael, engaged as usual in a communal attempt at escape, though it was easy to see that their uneven turtle stack would crumble long before they reached the top. And here was Leonardo, pawing at his brothers, though whether in an attempt to join them or police them it was impossible to tell. And Donatello was—

Gone.

Splinter's heart leapt into his throat, panic crunching the sides of the box between his hands. With motions made rough by his fear, one gray hand pushed aside the rags that served as bedding for his little ones—but he came up empty, only knocking Michelangelo and Raphael prematurely from their tower.

Splinter closed his eyes, forcing thought into his wildly spinning mind. Donatello had always been the cleverest of the turtles; it wasn't impossible that he had found his way out of the box, though the sides seemed plenty high for his brothers. It was a less frightening thought, at least, than the notion that he had been carried off by some kind of a sewer predator—

"Donatello?" Splinter rose to his feet, scanning the room once before he started toward the door, hoping fervently that his missing charge could not have made it that far. He didn't expect an answer, but somehow that did not stop his voice from bothering the patchwork shadows that lay heavy across the floor. "Donatello, are you here? Donatello—"

Then abruptly there was a squeak, and Splinter felt his foot catch on an unforeseen obstacle lurking on his floor. He tried to skip his troublesome step altogether, but he lost his balance in the process and careened forward into his makeshift tables, earning a solid blow to the stomach for his trouble. The commotion rattled his furniture and sent up another chorus of squeaks from the box—but all of Splinter's attention was on what had impeded his path, the shadow-cloaked barrier that had impeded his path.

Donatello.

With one hand, Splinter reached down and gathered the terrified little turtle to him, the other deftly rubbing a headache from his temples. He was going to need a bigger box.

.x.

"It is time for a story, children." Splinter lifted two picture books and held them up for his sons to see, watching as four sets of wide eyes moved between their cheerful if color-worn covers. "Which would you like to hear? The Ugly Duckling or Three Billy Goats Gruff?"

From where they sat huddled into his lap, four tiny turtles blinked back at him, exchanging as yet speechless stares with one another. Then Donatello stuck a finger in his mouth, and Michelangelo laughed and grabbed onto the back of Raphael's shell, prompting Raphael to push him away. Leonardo just returned his father's gaze with as much seriousness as his childish face allowed, as though he were being asked to choose between life and death rather than a bedtime story. Splinter sighed.

"Very well. Then we shall read The Ugly Duckling." It was new, after all. And as long as his sons did not seem to have a preference, Splinter would appreciate a new story. They had been reading Three Billy Goats Gruff for an awfully long time.

With a wasted wish for more variety in his small supply of picture books, Splinter began to read, trying to keep one eye on the young turtles that were not always entirely captivated by storytime.

"Once upon a time, there was a mother duck who laid six eggs. When it was time for the eggs to hatch…"

Splinter paused to catch Raphael's hand; Michelangelo was determined to get two arms around his brother, and Raphael did not seem to appreciate it in the least, a fact that his increased shoving was making all too clear. Raphael looked up at his father with half narrowed eyes, but Splinter only turned back to the book, keeping hold of the tiny turtle's fist and using the heel of that hand to force his two troublemakers apart.

"When it was time for the eggs to hatch, the mother duck waited happily to see her children. The first five eggs hatched into soft yellow ducklings. But when her last egg hatched, out came a very ugly duckling. It did not look like its brothers and sisters at all."

Michelangelo had begun to burble, and with the bubbles came a string of nonsense syllables, less words than proof that, from the moment his lips discovered sound, the young turtle had not been quiet long. Splinter wiped his next to youngest's mouth and pressed on, using his knees to keep the ever-curious Michelangelo within the bounds of his lap.

"The mother duck tried very hard to raise this ugly duckling. But it did not walk like its brothers and sisters. It did not look like them. All of the other animals laughed at her. Soon even the ugly duckling's brothers and sisters did not want to talk to him."

A few stray doubts about the moral of this story drifted through Splinter's mind—more, when he glanced down at his charges and found that Leonardo's serious gaze had not left his face, his mouth open just a little as he hung on his father's every word. Splinter frowned. It was not difficult to connect the four turtles in his lap to the plight of the ugly duckling.

He briefly considered flipping to the end, just to check on the progression of the story—but this was a children's book, after all. With a slight cough, Splinter continued his reading, turning pages with the hand that was not restraining Raphael from bothering his brother.

"At last the ugly duckling's mother told him she could not care for him anymore. She sent the ugly duckling out to face the world alone. The ugly duckling was very frightened at being alone." Splinter's frown sharpened, only lessening a little as he shook his head. "But the ugly duckling found many friends. They helped him to grow and to find food. The ugly duckling was not so frightened anymore…"

Splinter stopped again, this time because a small hand had tugged on his sleeve. He looked down to find Donatello opening and closing his mouth, working his tongue around his lips as though not quite sure what to do with it. Splinter put a hand on his son's shell.

"What is wrong, Donatello? Are you hungry?"

Donatello didn't exactly answer, but he looked away from Splinter and picked at the cloth of his robe instead, still opening and closing his mouth. Splinter watched him long enough to be sure that the little turtle was not choking, and then he returned to the story, leaving a small mystery unsolved not for the first time in his career as a father.

"At last fall came. All of the birds were flying south for winter. The ugly duckling did not know what to do. One day, he met a pretty white bird on the lake. He was shy to talk to this bird, because he was so ugly. But the other bird only laughed. 'Look at your reflection in the water,' the bird said. When the ugly duckling did, he saw that he was no longer an ugly duckling. He had become a swan."

Splinter smiled a little as he closed the book, and he looked down on his children still smiling, directing his words to attentive young Leonardo in particular. "You see, children. Even if you are different than those around you, you can become something wonderful."

Leonardo looked steadily up at him, though Splinter could not tell whether his next to oldest had absorbed his message or was merely fascinated by the movement of his mouth. Raphael and Michelangelo seemed to have missed the point—perhaps an effect of their growing hunger, if Raphael's fist crammed into his mouth was any indication. But Donatello tugged on his robe again, pulling the old rat's eyes to his hopeful face.

For a moment, Donatello's mouth continued to churn, as though he were trying to swallow something sticky. Then the little turtle broke into a smile.

"Dank oo, Dada," Donatello slurred, his toothless smile gaping up at his father.

_Thank you, Dada._

Splinter was not ashamed to admit that he had never been so proud.

.x.

"Dada?"

From his kneeling position on a bamboo mat, Splinter gave a mild sigh, keeping his eyes closed though he cocked his head toward his youngest son's voice.

"Yes, Donatello?"

It had been a long time since Splinter had found himself with either the time or the peace of mind to meditate. It wasn't just that being a father was a full-time job—fuller yet, now that all four turtles had learned to crawl. Perhaps it was for this reason that he was unwilling to give up on his meditation just yet, if it could be helped. He had expected to have at least another half hour to himself, since the television was still going in the background—but then, of all his children, Donatello seemed to have the least interest in the innovative talking box.

"Dada."

Splinter's sigh grew a little heavier. "Yes, my son, what is it?" he replied, speaking up in case the little turtle hadn't heard him the first time. But now that he listened, there was something a little off about Donatello's voice. It was quite a bit closer to him than it should have been, considering the distance from the television to his meditation space.

Not his children weren't proficient crawlers, of course. Michelangelo, in particular, was an avid crawler—so much so that Splinter had begun to wonder if his son would ever learn to walk on two feet, when he seemed so happy with a turtle's natural four. And Raphael, as well, hadn't given walking much thought since he'd learned that any trouble worth getting into could be gotten at from all fours. But Leonardo and Donatello—the latter especially—had recently forsaken crawling in favor of clinging upright to the leg of the couch. And all of that aside, it was strange for Donatello to separate from his brothers willingly.

Unless, of course, there was something he truly needed.

"Dada, lookie."

With a last sigh for his lost contemplation, Splinter opened his eyes. Then he opened them wider. Donatello was indeed closer than he should have been—but not on his knees. On his feet.

Donatello was walking.

Splinter straightened in his kneel. "Donatello!" he exclaimed—but his intonation must have been wrong, because the little turtle startled and tried to step back, overbalancing on his new feet. Donatello lost his footing and toppled backward onto his shell, his limbs waving uselessly through the air as he rocked back and forth.

"Dada! Help!"

Splinter surged from his mat and scooped Donatello into his arms, torn between the impulse to laugh with pride or give in to his impending headache. Who would have thought that even his mutated turtles were helpless on their shells?

.x.

"Wow!"

Michelangelo's shout echoed across Central Park, upsetting the gathering dusk and drawing not a few sideways glances from the hurried inhabitants of the restless city. Bundled up securely in coat, hat and scarf, the little turtle turned in a circle with his arms out, laughing through his heavy autumn getup.

"Look at all this space!" he cried, looking back at his family and stretching his arms out as wide as they would go. "We could fit, like, six hundred of our living rooms right here!"

"More like sixty," Donatello corrected—but even Splinter's most scientifically minded seemed captivated by the scene around them, his eyes moving between the winged fountain to their left and the bustle of scattered passersby flowing around them like water in a rocky stream.

Raphael gave a short laugh, taking in the surroundings with his hands on his hips. "We could play an awesome game of hide and seek in this place."

"Leo's it!" Michelangelo announced, needing no more encouragement to tag his brother and turn toward the depths of the park, everything in his face preparing for a mad dash into the darkness. But Splinter's hand shot out like vengeful lightning and caught his scarf—and three others besides—before the young turtle could take so much as a step, yanking his children back to his side. Michelangelo lurched through his backward progression and collided with his father's legs, earning him the hot zone under Splinter's withering glare.

"This is not the time for games," he told them firmly, giving the scarf another yank for emphasis. Michelangelo gave him the most innocent smile in the little turtle's arsenal, but Splinter only moved his hand to grip the back of his next to youngest's collar, urging his children closer as they began to move. "Come, my sons. Stay together and stay with me. We must not get separated in the crowd."

"It was Raph's idea!" Michelangelo protested, stumbling to keep up with his master's longer steps. "I didn't want to get separated, Sensei—honest! Mikey's a good little turtle. Are you gonna let me go yet?"

Splinter gave his son another look, but he saved his breath and didn't bother with another lecture. Words only ever went so far with Michelangelo. And in any case, now was not the time. The surface was dangerous, and the sooner they could get underground, the better.

Splinter had chosen the location of his lair well. It was buried deep within the labyrinth of tunnels and subterranean causeways resting in descending layers beneath the busy streets of New York, a place that was almost impossible to stumble across without knowing the way. It was rare that a repair or construction crew had reason to trespass in their area, and rarer when they bothered to climb so far down into the city's intestines—or, it had been, until the office district that perched above them needed a new water main and the blade of a jackhammer punching through the ceiling had surprised Splinter on his way home from a topside scout.

The construction two levels up had been a little too close for comfort for a worried old rat and his four curious children. So the family had spent their afternoon lurking in other parts of the sewers—a larger headache than Splinter had expected, between the half of his children who wanted to explore and the half who only knew how to find trouble. But it was night now, and it was time to head home—by way of the surface, because Splinter's little ones had not yet learned the art of navigating the sewers blind and one scraped knee was enough for Donatello.

Which brought them here: New York by streetlight, the shadows of Central Park, the trickle of people passing by who lived by the other half of the clock. And the tiny hand tugging on the sleeve of his overcoat, insisting that he pay attention to another of his children.

"My knee hurts, Sensei," Donatello reminded him, reaching up for Splinter's hand. Reluctantly, Splinter released Michelangelo's collar and settled for holding his scarf, freeing him to take his youngest's hand.

"I understand, Donatello," he said, keeping his voice soothing in spite of his building headache. "We will be home soon. Please do your best to bear with it."

Donatello pouted a little, as though perhaps that were not the answer he'd wanted, but Splinter was too busy trying to keep one eye on the people around them and the other on Raphael to worry about it. His oldest had strayed ahead a few feet, and he darted somewhat alarmingly from one side of the walkway to the other, occasionally knocked off course when he crashed into the leg of a passing pedestrian. Leonardo, walking a little behind his brother, suddenly stepped on something that crackled, and he stopped in his tracks, lifting one foot to investigate the sound.

"Hey, look," Leonardo called, and Raphael came back to join him, inspecting the red and gold flakes with a frown.

"Doesn't look like nothin' to me," Raphael scoffed.

"It made a noise," Leonardo defended.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Michelangelo darted forward to join his brothers, but the scarf stopped him, yanking the excited little turtle back like a yo-yo. Splinter swallowed a smile at his son's baffled face.

"It's a leaf," Donatello told them, looking not a little proud at his answer. "They dry out and change colors in fall."

Once more Splinter couldn't help being impressed by his youngest—his youngest who had just begun to read and had already shown such an interest in and a knack for remembering things about the world so far above his own. Leonardo leaned down and picked up another leaf to get a closer look, and Michelangelo stomped into a swirling pile of brown, laughing as a great cacophony of crackles shot up around his feet.

"Hey, this is great! It's like stepping on bubble wrap!"

"You think that's great, look over here," Raphael announced, waving across the handrail to where an even larger pile of leaves had collected beneath the trees. "I found the best spot!" Then the little turtle darted away from his brothers and made for the fence, his intentions as clear as the grin on his face.

"Me, too! Me, too!" Michelangelo yelled, pulling at his leash.

"Raphael—" Splinter tried, one hand short of being able to grab his oldest son.

But he needn't have worried. Long before Raphael could get through the guardrail and disappear into the night, there was a yank on his scarf, and the young turtle looked back to see that it was Leonardo who had grabbed on, hauling him to a stop with both hands. Raphael made a face at him, but Leonardo frowned right back, standing his ground.

"Master Splinter said not to get separated," he said.

Raphael gave him a shove. "Get offa me, Splinter Junior." But the insult did not seem to bother Leonardo enough to let go, and in any case Splinter caught up to them in an instant, releasing Donatello so that he could sink a fist into Raphael's collar.

"That is enough mischief," he chided, glancing at Raphael and Michelangelo in particular. "Come along, my sons—it is dangerous here." Donatello reached for his hand again, but Splinter was all out of hands, and he only gave his youngest a stern look. "I cannot hold onto you at the moment, Donatello. You may take Leonardo's hand."

Donatello's lip quivered a little. "But I don't want—"

"Come on, Donny," Leonardo interrupted, grabbing his little brother and hurrying to keep up with Splinter. "Let's just get home, huh?"

"But my knee—"

"Just try to think about something else," Leonardo advised, his voice becoming harder to hear as the family stepped out onto the real sidewalk and entered the thicker crowd. "Like maybe…"

Splinter didn't catch the tail end of Leonardo's suggestion, between the roar of car horns in the street to his left and the squabble Michelangelo and Raphael were perpetrating at his feet. But he paid it no mind. He was directing all his attention to keeping hold of his other two sons and getting them home as soon as possible. They had been on the surface far too long already—there was no more time for playing around. As long as Donatello was willing to keep up, Splinter did not much care how Leonardo got him to do it.

Or, he thought as much. Until they turned down a side street and Donatello suddenly, at the top of his lungs, shouted, "Stop!"

Splinter was not the only one to stop dead in his tracks. Many other people on the sidewalk, not to mention Michelangelo and Raphael, halted at his emphatic little voice, and as many pairs of eyes turned to stare at the bundled child that was its source, searching for the cause of his exclamation. Donatello blinked up at them all through the gap between his hat and scarf—and then he pointed to the stop sign perched at the curb ahead, his voice as innocent as a newborn dove's.

"Stop," he repeated, ducking behind Leonardo a little to avoid all the attention. Splinter shot his elder son a look as traffic on the sidewalk slowly moved back into its usual rhythm, the last vestige of the crowd's curiosity disappearing in a fading murmur.

"Sorry, Sensei," Leonardo said, ducking his head to keep his apologetic eyes on the concrete. "I thought if Donny practiced reading, maybe he wouldn't mind the walk so much…"

"Tada! Leo's stock of way-bad-good-ideas strikes again!" Michelangelo crowed.

"Nice going, Leo," Raphael added.

"That is enough," Splinter admonished them both, allowing himself a heavy sigh because he couldn't massage his headache. "Please, children—we must hurry home. And perhaps, Leonardo, this is not the time for reading practice," he suggested, earning another shamed head duck from his next to oldest.

"Yes, Master Splinter."

Splinter wished that had been the end of it. Unfortunately, Donatello seemed to have taken an interest in this game at the least opportune time, and as they moved along side streets and ducked into alleys the bright young turtle's voice rang out over and over again, drawing a few stares each time he read a sign aloud. But it wasn't until the last street that Donatello's newfound ability truly got them in trouble.

"Ben… Ben and Jerry's…"

Splinter glanced back over his shoulder to see Donatello lagging at the back of the group, practically being dragged along by Leonardo as he strained to read a sign across the way. Splinter picked up the pace. The manhole he used was down the next alley; if they could just make it that far, the worst of the danger would be over—

"Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream!"

That did it. All motion around the old rat stopped in an instant, his four children going more still than he had ever seen them before. Then all at once there were three hopeful voices clamoring for his attention, accompanied by more than one tug at the hem of his coat.

"Yeah, ice cream!"

"I want chocolate sprinkles and chocolate sauce and peanut butter cups and—"

"Hey! I read the sign, so I get the first ice cream—"

"My sons!" The tumult stopped, four little faces blinking up at him through the holes in their disguises. Splinter crossed his arms. "This is no time to be shouting about ice cream. We are going home, and we are going home now. There will be no ice cream tonight."

Four pairs of wide, heartbroken eyes turned up toward Master Splinter—even Leonardo, who had held his tongue, looked more than a little disappointed—and in spite of himself it was all Splinter could do to keep from relenting on the spot. A long moment of silence passed between the family of five; then Splinter put a hand to his head, cursing the strength of spirit that seemed to drain out of him every time his children pulled those faces.

"Perhaps tomorrow I can pick up ice cream for after dinner," Splinter sighed, and all four of his sons broke out into smiles, following him cheerfully now toward the entrance to the sewers.

"Just don't get vanilla, okay, Sensei?" Raphael prodded. "Vanilla's boring."

"I like vanilla," Leonardo shot back.

"No ice cream for me!" Michelangelo sang out. "Just a whole bottle of chocolate sauce. All mine!"

"I'm still the one that saw the sign," Donatello put in, not wanting to be forgotten as his brothers scrambled ahead of their father down the manhole. Splinter shook his head. Donatello was a brilliant child, true. If only his brilliance did not so often come with an equal measure of trouble.

.x.

There was only one thing Splinter really missed from his life before parenthood: silence.

Almost from the beginning, the old rat had realized that his brood wasn't likely to give him much peace, between Raphael's temper and Donatello's inquisitive mind and Michelangelo's continually flapping mouth. True, Leonardo tended to be a quieter child, but at times Splinter found that even more unnerving, because it was in Leonardo's quietest moments that Splinter would look over to find himself being outright scrutinized by his son, who had picked up the somewhat alarming habit of mimicking everything he saw his father doing. And so even those fleeting instances of silence were no respite for Splinter, burdened as they were by his desperate wish to be a perpetually good role model.

And then, of course, there were moments like this. Moments when it was entirely too quiet.

Nothing good ever came of this kind of quiet.

With a sigh for the book he'd been enjoying before the unnatural peace broke his concentration, Splinter sat up from the depths of his easy chair. Then he closed his eyes, tuning his ears to catch the faint sounds of life he'd become so adept at classifying.

Now that the turning of pages had stopped, Splinter realized the lair wasn't as silent as he'd thought. There was a low, unbroken gargle of sound coming from the living room, which probably meant Raphael was watching television—Raphael, because he could just make out the background music for Power Rangers, and his eldest never missed an episode.

Splinter smiled under his whiskers. Raphael had always liked the red ranger best.

A little farther away—in the practice room, probably—Splinter could discern a repeated pattern of three taps, which meant Leonardo was trying to meditate. The tapping would be his fingers—because for all that his next to oldest truly wanted to learn, meditation was not always easy for a child's active mind. Splinter had taught his son the trick of focusing on a repeated sound; he was not a little pleased to see that Leonardo was pursuing clarity of mind even outside of their lessons.

Concerning his other two…

As though summoned by his thoughts, there was a sudden series of pounding footfalls that Splinter would have heard no matter what book he'd been engrossed in. Then there was a crash that interrupted the rhythm of Leonardo's taps, and Michelangelo's voice rang out through the lair, spirited and hopeful.

"Hey, Leo!"

Leonardo did not answer; but his fingers had not resumed their regular tapping, so Splinter knew he had been successfully disrupted by his brother's interruption. There was a short dragging sound, likely Michelangelo changing his position on the floor, and then the energetic young turtle sang out again, no doubt waving a hand in his brother's face.

"Leo… Leo, guess what? Leo?" Leonardo must have opened an eye at least, because Michelangelo's voice shot up in volume again, the sound alone conveying an image of his grin. "Congratulations! You've been randomly selected to join me, your favorite baby brother, in a hardcore game of one-armed Tony the Tiger versus the big bad bobble-head duck!"

There was a sharp clatter then, no doubt Michelangelo dumping his mismatched assortment of toys onto the dojo floor, followed by the younger turtle's best impression of a television announcer.

"It all comes down to this—the final battle for the love of Hula Girl!"

Leonardo sighed so heavily that Splinter almost felt it. "Go away, Mikey. I'm training."

"You're not training," Michelangelo countered. "You're sitting alone in the dark doing your Master Splinter impression. And it's going really well, bro, seriously—except for the tail. You've gotta get one of those. And grow some fur while you're at it."

"Mikey," Leonardo repeated, no doubt crossing his arms. "I told you, I'm busy. Go play with Raph."

Michelangelo laughed a little, sounding less guilty than he probably should have. "Nah, Raph doesn't want to play with me. Not after I said he had to be the clothespin people." There was a moment of silence before Michelangelo's eager voice jumped in again, a clear attempt at reassurance. "But you don't have to be the clothespin people, Leo—Raph threw them under the couch. So come on—who do you want, huh? One-armed Tony and his ferocious toothpick? Or the squeaky duck that spits laser beams?"

"How does it do that?" Leonardo asked, being drawn into the conversation against his will.

"He swallowed a ray gun," Michelangelo said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

The silence meant Leonardo was staring at his younger brother in absolute bewilderment.

"Look, Mikey," Leonardo began at last. "I really don't—"

"Okay," Michelangelo cut in, switching tactics as his brother's tone changed. "You don't have to play. But as long as you're just gonna sit here not doing anything, can I use you for the castle? Your head would make a really stellar tower."

For a moment there was no answer, except for the half-exasperated frown that Splinter guessed had conquered Leonardo's face by now. Then the older turtle sighed a little, his voice slumping just as his shoulders were probably doing.

"If I play _one_ game with you, will you leave me alone?"

"Sure thing!" Michelangelo chirped, a little too quickly in Splinter's opinion. "Wouldn't dream of bothering you." Leonardo probably had the same skeptical expression as his father in the next room, but Michelangelo was still talking, preventing any kind of comeback. "So which do you want?"

"I guess…" Leonardo hesitated, and Splinter could almost hear his mind churning over the decision in his typical serious way. "The one-armed guy," the elder turtle answered at last, earning a whoop from Michelangelo.

"All right! I get the hero! Heroes always get the girl."

"How can you tell which one's the hero?" Leonardo protested, his confusion evident in his voice. Michelangelo laughed at him.

"Come on, Leo. Between a guy with no arm and a guy who spits laser beams, who do you think the hero's gonna be?" Then Michelangelo pressed on, not waiting for his brother's answer. "Okay—so here's the situation. Tony and the big bad duck are locked in a duel to the death, and Hula Girl's been kidnapped by Donny's earless teddy bear—"

"Did you ask Donny if you could borrow that?" Leonardo interrupted again, his child's voice serious as could be.

Michelangelo clicked his tongue. "You know, Leo, it's really not nice to interrupt somebody when they're talking. But I'll let it slide this time…"

Two rooms away, Splinter chuckled to himself, picturing in his mind the expression of pure irritation Leonardo must have been wearing by now. From the sounds of things, this was likely to be a short game. Leonardo had never been good at wielding his imagination; and Michelangelo, after all, could only go so long before he trampled someone's last nerve.

But Splinter heard no more of his sons' doomed battle, because suddenly a different sound caught his ears, superseding their louder voices by its uneasy feeling alone. _Shuffle shuffle clunk. Shuffle shuffle clunk_. Splinter frowned and opened his eyes, listening to the door opening behind him.

"Donatello?"

The shuffling stopped. For a moment there was only silence again, except for the strained breathing of a nervous child. Then Donatello gave a sniffle, and Splinter turned around in his chair to see his youngest shifting in the doorway, rubbing one foot against the other and gazing up at his father with great tremulous eyes.

And clutching the toaster.

Donatello followed Splinter's gaze to the appliance in his arms, holding his breath as he hugged it closer—then the little turtle slumped down onto the floor with tears in his eyes, releasing the toaster from his cautious fingers.

"I'm sorry, Sensei. I thought… I thought I could put it back together…"

As soon as his hands moved away, all four sides of the toaster clattered to the floor, leaving little but a metal skeleton and a rattle of screws where the toaster had once stood. Donatello bit his lip.

"…After I took it apart, I mean."

Splinter looked from his son to the toaster and back, digesting the death of the apparatus slowly. Part of him wanted to be proud—it was not every young child, after all, who had the intellect to dissect a toaster. The rest of him just wondered what they were going to do about breakfast. At last the old rat put a hand to his head, trying to hold back a sigh.

Nothing good ever came from quiet like this.

_End Chapter 2_


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Lengthwise, this is the biggest failure I've ever committed. This story was supposed to be eight pages long; needless to say, it's not. I also feel a little bad for Donatello, because his section is shorter than his brothers' sections. That's just the way it happened, though… the sections just got longer as I went through, and I don't have the energy to fix it now. He's still in everyone else's sections, though.

Premise: This story takes place during the fourth season of the 2003 4kids television series, ostensibly after Leonardo has returned from training with the Ancient One, rescued his family, beaten Karai and they've relocated from the old lair. While packing up the few things that can be saved, Splinter finds a treasure from earlier times that reminds him of anecdotes surrounding his sons' childhood.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Splinter looked from his son to the toaster and back, digesting the death of the apparatus slowly. Part of him wanted to be proud—it was not every young child, after all, who had the intellect to dissect a toaster. The rest of him just wondered what they were going to do about breakfast. At last the old rat put a hand to his head, trying to hold back a sigh. _

_Nothing good ever came from quiet like this._

.x.

Splinter recalled not finding that event quite as funny at the time as he did now.

The old rat ran his fingers across the picture that had settled at the top of the pile, following the shy lines with one delicate claw. His youngest. In reality, there was no assigning an order to his sons—he had found them all at the same time, and they had been too close to the same age to differentiate at the beginning. All the same, he couldn't help thinking of Donatello as his lastborn. It was his temperament: his gentleness; his incredible intelligence and willingness to learn; the kindness to give Michelangelo his own chocolate bar, when his brother lost his Snickers to the sidewalk; the stubborn petulance to accept no movie choice but his own when movie night came around.

And perhaps it was his neediness as well—because of them all, Donatello had needed the most support by far from his family. He needed Michelangelo's friendship, and Raphael's courage, and Leonardo's protection, though there was no denying that in the early days it was most often Raphael that Donatello needed protection from. And from Splinter himself, the reassurance of an ever-guiding hand when the path of a ninja seemed to be traveling in a direction Donatello did not want to go.

.x.

"Donatello."

Donatello froze halfway through his kata, one leg hanging limply in front of him in preparation for a snap kick. The young turtle glanced back over his shoulder to where Master Splinter watched from against the wall, his features both gentle and stern. From the next room, the unmistakable sound of Leonardo besting Raphael at video games, accompanied as always by Michelangelo's unabashed commentary, flooded past the curtain that segregated Splinter's makeshift dojo from the rest of the lair.

The dojo had grown with his sons, and Splinter had rearranged their home not a few times to provide a large enough space to train all four turtles at the same time, if he so desired. But this was Donatello's individual lesson—even Leonardo, known to haunt the dojo during his brother's lessons, had been banished to the other room with his remaining siblings.

No doubt this isolation was part of the reason Donatello's eyes were so wide in his round face.

Step by patient step, Splinter made his way to his youngest son's side, his movement relaxing Donatello back into ready position. The old rat put a considering hand to his chin, looking deep into Donatello's eyes.

"My son, you are unusually off-balance today. Your attention does not seem to be on your lesson."

It wasn't the first time, particularly of late. Donatello's interest in technology and science had unquestionably taken the place of training in the young turtle's thoughts; his youngest son's sloppy form and slowed reactions were proof enough that something else was occupying Donatello's remarkably intelligent mind.

But today's faults were different even than the ones Splinter had begun to recognize as symptoms of drifting attention. Today, Donatello was genuinely fidgety, and hardly a minute passed in full without the little turtle sparing a glance at his master. Such uncertainty Splinter had not seen in his sons since their very earliest lessons.

Donatello was avoiding his father's eyes, so Splinter cleared his throat, leaning down until his gaze became inescapable. Donatello shuffled back and Splinter caught his arm, wondering if his bewilderment showed in his face.

"My son, if you do not apply your full effort to your training, you will learn nothing—"

"Well, maybe I don't want to learn anything!" Donatello suddenly shouted, breaking his silence and yanking his arm free of his master's grip. The young turtle squeezed his hands into fists, squeezing his eyes shut at the same time. "Maybe I—maybe I don't want to be a ninja at all!"

His words brought unprecedented silence to the lair; in the next room, all sound of motion and voices had ceased, the pall of tension seeming to subdue even the video game. Splinter found that he, too, was at something of a loss for words. Then he noticed the tears that were holding steady in Donatello's eyes, and speaking became easier.

"My son…"

Donatello wasted no time running to his father's open arms, almost stumbling over himself to reach that warm embrace. The spell of silence in the next room had also been broken, by an exchange that Splinter recognized as the opening of an argument, if in quieter voices than usual.

"What did you do, Raph?"

"What makes you so sure I did anything?"

"Ooh, Leo got your number, Raph," Michelangelo announced cheerfully, probably ducking his oldest brother's ready fist. "He called Donny a loser ninja."

"Why you—"

"Why do you always pick on him?" Leonardo demanded.

"Why do you always stick your big fat nose into stuff that's not your business?" Raphael shot back.

Splinter closed his eyes momentarily, choosing somewhat reluctantly to ignore his elder children's brewing squabble. Instead he directed his attention to Donatello, rubbing his youngest's shoulder with a soft, steady hand. "You have always been quick, my son. I only wish you were not quite so quick to take Raphael's words to heart."

Donatello shook his head. "It isn't just Raph, Sensei. I mean it. I don't want to be a ninja."

That gave Splinter true pause, causing him to pull back far enough to study his son's face. "And why is that, Donatello?" he asked at last. Donatello grimaced, scuffing one foot against the floor.

"Because being a ninja's all about beating people up. And I don't want to, Sensei!" Donatello shook his head hard, his great, sad eyes almost pleading as he gazed up at Splinter. "I don't want to hurt people!"

Splinter blinked, and then he had to smile. It was that same current of kindness that he had often recognized in his youngest—the same kindness that had made him so interested in the world around him, so determined to learn all he could about the creatures he shared the world with. The same kindness that made him Michelangelo's best friend. That kept him coming back to Raphael, in spite of the taunts. That so frequently awoke a protective instinct in Leonardo. And in Splinter himself, too.

So Splinter did something that he did not often do—he knelt so as to match Donatello's height, drawing that worried, wide-eyed gaze with him.

"In that case, Donatello, you should be even more eager to devote yourself to your training." Donatello opened his mouth in protest, but Splinter raised a finger, silencing him before he spoke. "It is a rare life in which one does not have to fight. But it is an even rarer ninja who is skilled enough to defeat his opponents without doing them great harm."

Donatello did not seem to know what to say to that, and Splinter let him keep his silence as he rose once more to his feet, keeping his kind eyes on his youngest's face.

"You have a brilliant mind, Donatello. You have already demonstrated this on many occasions." Donatello's expression lifted somewhat at his father's compliments, and Splinter reached out to tap his son's forehead. "If you focus on your training, you will become a more incredible ninja than you already are. Do you understand?"

Again Donatello kept his voice in check, as though perhaps he hadn't decided quite what to answer yet—but he nodded all the same, and Splinter favored him with a smile, turning to the weapons rack behind him and retrieving a pair of staffs.

"Come, my son. I will teach you a disarming technique."

Donatello did as he was told, taking up his position at Splinter's side and accepting his bo with thoughtful hands. And as the argument in the next room settled back to the dull roar of video games, the two practiced side by side, disarming the shadows that lay long across their feet.

.x.

Splinter smiled down at the carefully colored pages, shuffling them in his hands so he could gaze at each one. Donatello. A talented ninja on top of all his other accomplishments, and the shogi champion in their house from a much younger age than he had expected. The uncontested victor of the extensive memory games Splinter had arranged for his children in their youth. Self-appointed master of every article of technology to enter their home.

But Splinter knew, and his pictures knew, that there was more to Donatello than this: a tremendous heart. An unwavering mind. And a gentle soul who had always, in the true manner of a youngest child, looked for—and received—proof of unwavering love from everyone in his life. Even Raphael.

.x.

"I call top bunk!"

With a scramble of legs that had not yet grasped the concept of dignity, Michelangelo scurried up the ladder of the bunk bed, pouncing onto his bed and peering gleefully down at his father and brothers from his chosen post. Down on the ground, Raphael snorted, hurrying to the second bunk bed and beginning a similar climb.

"There's no way I'm sleeping under your smelly feet all night," he said, climbing onto the bed opposite Michelangelo's and turning to grin at his brother. But he only received a pillow in the face for his trouble, followed by Michelangelo's unmistakable laughter.

"Oh! And it's one-zero Mikey with a surprise attack on the Raphinator!"

"I'll show you surprise attack," Raphael returned, chucking the pillow back at Michelangelo and reaching for his own as well. Splinter took a calming breath and reached up to catch the feather missile in midair, warning Raphael with a decisive look that he'd do better to keep hold of his pillow.

"Settle down, children. It is time to sleep."

Donatello looked dubiously at the two remaining beds—the first bed he would ever have to himself—and took his father's hand, turning big, worried eyes on the patient old rat. "Are you sure it's a good idea for us to sleep alone out here?" he asked, fidgeting with the edge of his master's sleeve. "I mean, what if the sewers flood in the middle of the night, or—or a big crocodile comes by, or…"

"Ha!" Raphael scoffed from the top bunk. "I ain't afraid of no crocodiles."

"How do you know? You've never even seen one," Leonardo pointed out, dodging a pillow swipe from his older brother.

"'Cause I'm no scaredy cat, that's how."

Splinter sighed, pulling his hand softly from Donatello's and patting the little turtle's back. "There is no danger from crocodiles here," he told them, glancing especially down at Donatello's worried face. "There is no danger here at all."

"But why can't we sleep with you?" Donatello asked, his voice just bordering on a whine. "We always sleep with you, Master Splinter. I don't want to sleep alone."

Splinter shook his head, moving his gentle hand to his youngest's shoulder. "There comes a time, my son, when even the smallest of birds must build their own nests," he answered. "You are old enough now to be sleeping on your own. And you will not be sleeping alone. Your brothers will be here with you, after all."

"Yeah, share my bed, Donny!" Michelangelo called, looping his feet into the bed frame and hanging upside down by his ankles. "It'll be great! We can make up a secret code of knocks, or make a telephone out of cans and pass secret messages when we're supposed to be sleeping."

Splinter wasn't sure he approved of these bedtime antics, and Raphael looked like he probably didn't either, though Splinter suspected he was just jealous at the knowledge that Leonardo wasn't likely to play such games with him. But Donatello, at least, looked a little mollified, and he gingerly let go of his father and crawled into the bed beneath Michelangelo's. Michelangelo made an upside-down face at him, and Donatello made one back, setting them both to laughing.

Splinter took a half step back, watching with undecided eyes as Leonardo crawled into the bed beneath Raphael's and his sons bundled themselves up in their covers. Then he clasped his hands together, hoping the contact would diffuse the strangely empty feeling that had taken over his fingers.

"Remember, children," Splinter began, not for the first time. "If you need anything, I am just in the next room…"

"We'll be fine, Sensei," Leonardo promised with a smile, pulling the covers up to his chin. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight!" three other voices chorused.

Left with nothing else to say, Splinter took another step back, clearing his throat to dislodge the unused words that seemed to have built up there. "Yes… goodnight, my sons," he returned, taking another look around before he flipped off the light. Then he retreated to his room as smoothly as he could, steeling himself against the urge to look back.

Their first night alone. His first night alone in a long, long time.

With a sigh that he attributed to the exhaustion of another day, Splinter knelt onto his bamboo mat and lit a small candle, inhaling the scent of the dusty flame and the tranquility that accompanied it. It had been so long since meditation before bed was even an option—his four young charges were simply too great a handful to leave him any peace and quiet before they had to be wrestled into bed. But here it was: his first night of freedom after many months of full-time scrutiny.

After five minutes, there was no denying it any longer. His mind would not clear.

Splinter tried to quiet his thoughts by controlling his breathing and closing his eyes—but in a minute they were open again, glancing toward the bedroom door. It was more difficult than he'd imagined to keep his tiresome band of little ones from invading his mind. What if Donatello had trouble sleeping, as he often did in new or strange situations? And Michelangelo had always been a restless sleeper—what if he toppled from the height of his new bed? And was it truly wise to let Raphael and Leonardo share a bed, given their tendency toward argument? Now that he thought about it, perhaps his sons weren't old enough to sleep alone after all…

Splinter was halfway to the door before he caught himself, and then he frowned, silently admonishing himself for how soft parenthood had made him. But before he could return to his mat and force himself to focus on the candle, a small sound caught his attention—a sound no parent could ignore. The sound of someone whimpering in the next room.

Donatello.

Splinter was out his door in a flash, silent more by instinct than intent. But he didn't get more than a few feet into the next room—previously the living room—before something stopped him, a little voice rising out of the darkness.

"Donny? What's the matter?"

It was Leonardo's voice, and he had moved from his bed as well, standing beside his brother with an uncertainty even their nightlight could pick up. And he wasn't the only one. Raphael had jumped down from his bunk to see what the trouble was, and Michelangelo hung his head over the side of his bed, watching his brother upside down. Not wanting to interrupt them, Splinter slipped into the shadows of the kitchen doorway, watching Raphael sit down next to Donatello and drop an arm around his shoulders.

"Yeah, what's up with you, Donny? What're you cryin' for?"

Donatello scrubbed at his eyes, though he made no effort to steady his quavering voice. "I don't like sleeping out here," he told them, looking at each of his brothers in turn. "I want to sleep with Master Splinter."

Splinter was sorely tempted to step out of the shadows then and gather his youngest into his arms. But he held himself back, waiting instead to see how his sons handled the problem. Leonardo opened his mouth but closed it again without speaking, and Raphael squeezed his baby brother a little, his voice cocky but comforting in the incomplete darkness.

"Ah, come on, Donny. You're not still stuck on that, are you?"

Donatello didn't reply, but his face crumpled a little, as though he were about to break out into real tears. Michelangelo leaned farther over the side of his bed, waving to Donatello and kicking his blankets into a tremendous tangle.

"Cheer up, Donny. It's not so bad. Think about all the stuff we can do since Sensei's not here—we can stay up as late as we want, and Raph can tell scary stories, and then we can sneak into the kitchen for a midnight snack and he'll never know."

"Of course he'll know," Leonardo disagreed, crossing his arms over his chest.

But Donatello did not pay either of them any mind, only shaking his head as his voice grew louder and more stubborn. "I don't care about any of that," he said, fisting his little hands. "I don't want to do any of that stuff. I just want to sleep with Sensei. It's dark out here, and this isn't my bed, and I'm scared. I want to be with Master Splinter!"

With each word his voice gained a little in volume, and his brothers shared a round of uneasy looks, Raphael tightening his grip around Donatello's back. "Donny, c'mon—"

"No!" Donatello cried, interrupting him with body as well as words as he pushed himself abruptly to his feet, shaking Raphael's arm away. "I don't care. I'm gonna sleep with Master Splinter."

Donatello began moving toward his father's bedroom, but Leonardo stepped in front of him, stopping his brother's progress with two hands on his shoulders. "You can't, Donny," Leonardo said. "Master Splinter said we're old enough to sleep alone, and he's right. We've got to show him we can take care of ourselves."

"But I'm scared!" Donatello wailed.

"There's nothing to be scared of!" Leonardo told him, his exasperation clearly rising by the second. But it was Raphael who broke their stalemate, rising to his feet and giving Leonardo a shove.

"Oh, what do you know?" Raphael accused, returning Leonardo's glare. Then he led Donatello back to the bed and sat down on its edge beside him, putting his arms once more around the unhappy little turtle. "All right, Donny," Raphael began, looking his youngest brother in the eye. "What is it you're afraid of?"

Donatello thought for a moment. "Mostly crocodiles," he answered at last. Raphael snorted.

"Crocodiles? I thought I already told you to forget about those. Any crocodiles slither up here, ol' Raph'l give 'em one-two in the jaw." Raphael pantomimed his attack, just brushing Donatello's chin with his fist. Then he grinned, leaning into his brother's shoulder as the shadows deepened his smile. "You still scared of crocodiles?"

"No," Donatello admitted, a little reluctantly. "But what about alligators?"

"Aren't those the same thing?" Raphael asked, his forehead wrinkling at the technicality. Then his expression slipped back to an easy smile, accompanied by a rolling shrug. "Ah, whatever. The alligators are gonna get it just as bad as the crocodiles."

"But what if there's a flood?" Donatello pressed.

Raphael frowned at him. "You afraid of a little water?"

"And what about rats?" Donatello asked again, though a fragment of his fear seemed to be fading with each question. Raphael made a fist.

"No itty-bitty rodent's gonna get the better of me!"

From the kitchen, Splinter carefully swallowed his chuckle. Donatello bit his lip, racking his brain for another potential danger.

"Well what about… what about—"

"What about huge poisonous snakes with fangs the size of your arm?" Michelangelo cut in, practically bouncing with excitement on the top bunk. Donatello's eyes got very large, and Leonardo reached up to smack Michelangelo's dangling leg.

"Stop scaring him," he hissed. But Raphael only scoffed, sending his orange-banded brother a thumbs up.

"It'd flatten him out and make me a belt."

Michelangelo grinned, obviously loving this game. "And monsters?"

"Barely a good warm-up."

"Zombies?"

"You think I'm gonna get kicked around by some dead guy?"

"The creature from the black lagoon?"

"Those things don't exist!" Leonardo protested, stomping one foot in unraveling patience. Raphael barely spared him a glance before turning back to Michelangelo with an outright grin.

"Mikey, let's just say this straight up. No matter what freak of nature drags its ugly butt up out of the sewers, it ain't gonna get by me."

"Woohoo! Three cheers for Raph—as long as it doesn't involve his brain, he's invincible!" Michelangelo hooted triumphantly from the top bunk, and Raphael swung at his dangling foot, losing out to his brother's devilish speed. But he lost interest in Michelangelo when Donatello gave him a big hug, his eyes wide with admiration now instead of fear.

"You're so brave, Raph," he said, earning a short laugh from his oldest brother.

"Ha. 'Course I am. And I'll tell you what else." Then he leaned close to Donatello and gave him an affectionate pat on the back, a blow that lacked any of its usual force. "Starting tomorrow, you can take the other top bunk. And then anything coming after ya will get Leo first." Leonardo frowned a little at this, but Raphael just smiled, squeezing Donatello to complete his speech. "Now come on, Donny, tell me—you're not scared anymore, are you?"

Donatello shook his head, and Raphael nodded, pushing his brother back into the bed before lying down beside him. "Good. Then we can all get some shut-eye. And don't worry," he added, giving Donatello a firm squeeze. "Anything tries to getcha, I'll be right here to show it who's boss."

Donatello was smiling again at last, an expression that grew softer under the light of their tiny lamp as he laid his head against Raphael's shoulder. From the top bunk, Michelangelo laughed and scrambled like a monkey down the bunk bed ladder, jumping the last few rungs.

"Hey, sleepover! Me, too, guys!" Michelangelo tumbled into bed beside Donatello, slinging his arm over his younger brother and making a face at Raphael. "Move over, Raph—I'm falling off over here."

"Nobody asked you, knucklehead," Raphael grumbled—but he scooted over nonetheless, and Donatello scooted with him, laughing as Michelangelo gave him a great bear hug.

"I'm a turtle sandwich!" he announced in a high whisper, all traces of fear long gone from his voice.

Raphael rolled his eyes. "Just go to sleep, ya crybaby."

Donatello didn't protest the insult; he just leaned into Raphael and closed his eyes, comfortable at last in his new bed. Splinter smiled a little as he studied the tremendous turtle pile his children had formed, a tangle of limbs that would surely lead to trouble in the morning—but he didn't retreat yet, waiting to see what his remaining son would do.

Leonardo hadn't moved or spoken in a long time, watching the other turtles with a frown that was proof enough how ridiculous he found his brothers' antics. Now he too stood inspecting the pile on Donatello's bed, his mouth just open as though there were something on his mind and he had not quite decided whether to say it or not. At last Leonardo seemed to choose silence, and he turned away, looking more than a little put out, and headed for his bed.

"Leo?"

The little voice stopped him. Leonardo looked back at Donatello's hand, reaching toward him out of the turtle pile-up.

"Leo," Donatello repeated, catching his brother's eyes.

Michelangelo clicked his tongue. "Uh oh. Shoulda guessed—Leo the spoilsport's just too good to get in on the group hug."

Leonardo hesitated. Raphael scoffed into the blankets.

"Just get over here, shell for brains."

And at last Leonardo did, pushing the pillow aside and curling up at Donatello's head. Protected by the shadows, Splinter watched as they stilled into silence, remembering unbidden all the times he had fallen asleep with that mess of turtles curled up in his arms, four little hearts beating against his. The old rat shook his head.

Perhaps he was not as ready as he'd thought for his children to grow up.

Splinter gave his slumbering sons one last glance, and then he headed for his room step by patient step, listening to the breathing of his little ones like distant music in the night. Just as he reached the doorway, a small voice broke the silence.

"There's no such thing as monsters," Leonardo whispered.

"They always eat the non-believers first," Michelangelo whispered back.

Splinter did not try to contain his widening smile.

_End Chapter 3_


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Moving out of Donatello's section now. Sorry again, Donatello, for your short, short section.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Splinter gave his slumbering sons one last glance, and then he headed for his room step by patient step, listening to the breathing of his little ones like distant music in the night. Just as he reached the doorway, a small voice broke the silence._

"_There's no such thing as monsters," Leonardo whispered._

"_They always eat the non-believers first," Michelangelo whispered back._

_Splinter did not try to contain his widening smile._

.x.

And he was smiling now, too—smiling at Donatello's pictures resting in his hands, these fragile skeletons of childhood that, like autumn's fallen leaves, told the story of a tree that had outgrown them.

But he could not just smile forever. Time was moving in the next room—moving with his tireless sons as their voices and their hands sorted supplies from the rubble—and he needed to move on, too. With careful eyes Splinter canvassed the ground at his feet, searching out another drawing in the same style, making sure no slip of Donatello had flitted away. But in the end there were no more. So Splinter bent down and retrieved a very different picture—perhaps as far from Donatello's as the space of one coloring book allowed.

The first things he noticed were the colors. Strong, vivid colors, pressed into the page so hard that by running his palm over the back he could feel the imprint of each furrowed mark. Not that every color was represented: red and greens, by and large, deep with the force of the illustrator's hand. And never inside the lines—not deliberately outside of them, but always driving past nonetheless, as though the little fingers responsible had simply lacked the discipline to stop where instructed.

Somehow, the roughness did not diminish Splinter's smile as he laid this picture gently on top of Donatello's, smoothing down the edges that time and early impatience had together made so wrinkled. Even more than in Donatello's artwork, he could see his oldest son in this: the passion, the temper, and the strength that was—always had been—his faithful double-edged sword.

.x.

"Raphael."

There was a groggy moan from behind the door, and Splinter knocked harder this time, hard enough to push the door open a little under his hand. Only darkness greeted him through the widening crack—a fact that sharpened Splinter's idle frown and forced the door back before him, giving his hand a clear shot at the light switch.

"Raphael."

This time his voice was accompanied by a great burst of light, and Raphael's grumble turned into a yelp, his suddenly active hands rushing to pull the covers over his head. Splinter leaned against the door frame and tapped his foot, regarding his eldest's cluttered, careless room with the same bland disapproval as its occupant.

"It is time to rise, my son," Splinter announced, after half a minute had passed with no more movement from the figure in bed. Raphael dropped his blanket barricade far enough to regard his master with one narrowed eye.

"Aw, c'mon, Sensei… it can't be morning already."

Splinter leaned heavily into his cane, his whiskers twitching with growing impatience. "It can for those of us who stayed up past midnight watching television," the old rat observed, causing Raphael to groan and drag his bedding over his head once again.

"Just five more minutes…"

"Five more minutes and you will be practicing without breakfast, Raphael," Splinter replied mildly, turning back to the hallway. "But you may do that if you wish."

"Aurghhhhh…"

Behind him Splinter could hear his son stumbling out of bed, no doubt tripping over the wealth of objects that had taken the place of his floor as he struggled to find his mask. Splinter shook his head, making his slow way back to the kitchen as Raphael's growling voice filled the room behind him. Early rising was not, as it happened, among the things that put his eldest in a jovial mood.

Fighting? Oh, yes. Morning practice? Not often.

There was another crash from the bedroom behind him, but Splinter had no time to wonder at it—because there was a series of smaller but somewhat more mysterious crashes coming from the kitchen as well, and he was curious what trouble his other sons had gotten up to while he was dealing with Raphael. Turning the corridor's last corner and pausing in the doorway, Master Splinter looked over the good-natured chaos that was so common at his breakfast table, keeping his smile firmly off his face so that none of his little ones would get the wrong impression about the mess they were making.

"Hearts, stars, rainbows, clovers and balloons!" Michelangelo was singing as he dumped Lucky Charms into his cereal bowl and halfway across the table. "Pots of gold and… hang on. The rainbows are at the end. Hearts, stars, clovers, horseshoes and…"

"That's still not right," Donatello told him, looking sleepy and not a little put out as he munched Captain Crunch on the other side of the table. "It's 'hearts, stars, horseshoes'."

"What's a horseshoe, anyway?" Michelangelo asked, ignoring his younger brother and liberally dousing milk not only over his breakfast but over the outlying Lucky Charms colonies spread across Splinter's table. "What's a horse need with a shoe? I run around barefoot all day, and I don't even have horse feet!"

"Hoofs," Leonardo corrected automatically, standing at the counter with his back to his brothers. Splinter's next to oldest seemed to have opted for toast instead of cereal this morning—which was only a little funny to his father, because Leonardo was not quite tall enough to retrieve the toast without assistance.

"Hoofs," Michelangelo mimicked. "Whatever. I don't have hoofs."

"Depends who ya ask," grunted a surly voice from the doorway. The three little turtles glanced toward the door to find Master Splinter watching them, accompanied now by Raphael, who had appeared at his elbow with his waking frown still in place. Raphael crossed his arms. "When you come poundin' out of your room in the morning, I'd swear your feet were made of concrete."

"At least it's not my _head_ that's made of concrete," Michelangelo teased, knowing his brother far too well to stay in his seat as Raphael stalked toward his side of the table.

"Why, you—"

"Raphael." The eldest turtle looked back at his master's voice, and Splinter raised a furry eyebrow, inclining his head toward the table where Donatello was eating amid Michelangelo's mess. "There is not much time. Perhaps you should save that energy for training."

Raphael's expression narrowed yet farther, but with grudging steps he did as his father instructed, taking a sordid seat across from his youngest brother and staring at the cereal boxes as though perhaps they were responsible for the morning he was having. Michelangelo slipped back into his own seat with a whistle, leaning on his elbows over his untouched cereal.

"Gee, Raph—you sure are cheerful this morning."

Raphael sent him a baleful scowl. "Just wait 'till after breakfast, Mikey. Then maybe I could do you the favor of cheerfully rearranging your face."

"Still won't be as bad as yours!" Michelangelo sang out, instinctively ducking Raphael's fist between bites of cereal.

"Hey!" Donatello cried. "Watch it, Raph! You're gonna tip over the cereal boxes."

Splinter shook his head a little—but this type of bickering was practically ritual in the early mornings, so he let them be, moving to the other side of the kitchen where Leonardo was still trying to get his fingertips on his cooling toast. The young turtle paused in his reach toward the toaster—the new toaster—to smile up at Splinter with a respectful nod.

"Morning, Sensei."

"Good morning, Leonardo," Splinter returned, lifting two plates from the cabinet as though he had not noticed his son's struggle. "I seem to have left my water glass in the sink. Will you fill it for me?"

"Of course," Leonardo answered, stepping away to do as he'd been asked. Without a flicker of change in his expression, Splinter slipped his son's toast onto one of the plates and inserted two more pieces of bread into the toaster, so that when Leonardo turned back with the glass in his hands, his master was watching the toaster with a bland expression, as though his own wish for toast had been the only reason for the swap.

"Thank you, my son," Splinter said, trading his water glass for the toast. Then he nudged Leonardo toward the table and turned back to watch his browning bread, indulging in only a fleeting, private smile.

Behind him, the conversation had returned to horseshoes, a subject that seemed to have captured Michelangelo's unpredictable mind this morning. "But seriously. What are they for?" the orange-banded turtle asked again, glancing around at his brothers. Raphael scoffed, readying spoon and plastic bowl in front of him.

"You nitwit. You throw horseshoes at a stake in the ground. Everybody knows that."

Raphael looked remarkably proud of his answer until Donatello piped up from his side of the table, knowledgeable indignation written all over his face. "That's not it, Raph. Horses wear them. That's why they're called _horse_shoes."

"Oh, yeah?" Raphael challenged, leaning over the table in his youngest brother's direction. "And what do they wear them _for_, huh, smart-aleck? To go out dancing?"

Donatello's lip quivered a little; he wasn't used to being questioned on matters of intellect, since it had been obvious from a very young age that he was miles above his brothers in that department. Beside him, Leonardo sighed and put a hand on his youngest brother's shoulder, sending a look around the table.

"Come on, guys. Let's just eat breakfast, okay? We don't have very long until practice anyway."

"Heh. Spoilsport," Raphael grunted, grabbing for the box of Captain Crunch at last.

"I just wanna know why they're purple," Michelangelo continued through a mouthful of marshmallows.

"Probably 'cause those ones are rotten," Raphael said, upending the box of Captain Crunch into his bowl. "That's why I never eat Lucky—"

His voice stopped in time to the stream of cereal—cereal that had barely covered the bottom of his bowl before it rattled to a stop, refusing him any more in spite of how hard he shook the box. Raphael stared at his meager portion, and then his bad mood turned into a shout that almost startled Splinter's toast right off of his plate.

"Who ate all my Captain Crunch?" he demanded, banging one fist against the table and squashing rogue Lucky Charms beneath it. "It's my cereal—everybody knows that. So who did it, huh?"

"Raphael…" Splinter began to caution—but one harsh look from his oldest brother had been enough to do Donatello in, and he pulled his cereal bowl into his chest, his wide eyes still clinging to the last vestiges of defiance.

"I didn't want Lucky Charms this morning," the youngest turtle said. "Because I've got a toothache, and sugar makes it worse."

"So I'm supposed to go without breakfast instead?" Raphael accused, swiping at Donatello's bowl. But Leonardo stopped him, trapping his hand against the tabletop.

"Stop it, Raph," Leonardo ordered, exchanging glares with his older brother. "This isn't Donny's fault. If you'd gotten up when you were supposed to—"

"Oh, so now _you_ decide who gets to eat?" Raphael challenged, wrenching himself out of his chair and glaring down at Leonardo. "Well, I don't know when I moved to the United States of Leo, but you can bet your shell I'm gonna be on the first return flight back!" Then he spun around and grabbed Donatello's bowl, fighting his younger brother's desperate grip. "Gimme that cereal!"

"No way!" Donatello cried. "I already said I don't want Lucky Charms!"

"What's wrong with Lucky Charms?" Michelangelo protested.

"Children!" Splinter tried, dropping his plate onto the counter with a bang and striding toward the tug of war with a heavy frown. But his two remaining children cut him off, diving into the conflict and inadvertently blocking his path.

"Let go, Raph!" Leonardo ordered, grabbing his brother around the middle. Michelangelo leapt away from the table with his bowl in his hands, dancing from foot to foot to stay out of his brothers' way.

"Hey! Some of us are still trying to eat breakfast here, ya know!"

"Children—"

Then there was a crash, and a splash, and a pair of yelps from Michelangelo and Donatello as the contested bowl went hurtling into the air, painting the two younger turtles a liberal shade of milk before it clattered on the floor. Donatello began to whimper, and Michelangelo's eyes were almost as wide as his mouth, which was still moving in spite of his obvious shock.

"Ew! Way to go, Raph! Next time I want to be whitewashed, remind me that you've got the table manners of a rampaging bull."

"Why you—"

"That is enough," Splinter barked, grabbing Raphael by the shoulders before his eldest could start another fight. He spun the little turtle around until he was looking into Raphael's eyes, meeting the rage and frustration burning there with his coldest stare. A moment passed between them in silence, and then Splinter straightened, glancing around at his conclave of quiet children.

"Michelangelo, Donatello," he said at last. "Go get into the bath tub. You cannot train like this."

Michelangelo made a face. "A bath so early? We just got up!"

"But I didn't get to finish—" Donatello started.

"Hush." It was just one word, but the tone that carried it shut both his sons' mouths in a snap, setting Donatello's lip to trembling just a little as his father pointed to the door. "Do not take too long. Now go."

His two youngest shared a look, and then Michelangelo shrugged, taking Donatello's hand. "C'mon, Donny—we can play turtle submarines!"

"But I don't want—"

But Splinter heard no more of the exchange, because the two were gone, only Michelangelo's imitation motor noises hanging in the air behind them. With a sigh for his kitchen and his breakfast and his peace of mind, Splinter turned back to his elder sons, watching their variously guarded and guilty faces.

"Raphael and Leonardo. Clean up this mess."

Then Splinter turned back to the counter and busied himself with other matters, listening with only half an ear to the protests and muted bickering and terse scrubbing going on behind him.

By the time Donatello and Michelangelo returned from their bath—looking cheerful and clean in spite of Donatello's reservations—the kitchen was clean and Splinter was lifting the first group of pancakes off of the griddle, hoping their second round of breakfast would go better than the first.

Of course, had they been older or at least better disciplined, Splinter would have pressed on into training without bothering about breakfast at all, and let that be a lesson to all of them. But considering how strained things had already been that morning, and taking into account as well Donatello's sensitivity, Michelangelo's mouth and how good Leonardo and Raphael were at pushing each other lately… well, Splinter had decided not to test Raphael's temper any more than necessary.

But it seemed that the winds of conflict had nested in Splinter's kitchen this morning. Because no sooner had Michelangelo and Donatello taken their seats between two silent, glaring brothers and Splinter served all of his children their towering stack of pancakes than he realized a terrible mistake had been made: the two pancakes that had been browning side by side in his griddle had somehow merged into one, a gargantuan lopsided circle that outstripped all the others he had made.

With a feeling of unease, Splinter glanced at the batter bowl—but there was very little left, barely enough to make the thumbprint pancakes he always finished with. Certainly not enough to repeat the accident. The old rat glanced over his shoulder. All four of his children were munching steadily on various degrees of candied pancakes; but by far, the only two still grabbing for the last few pancakes on the plate were Michelangelo and Raphael.

Michelangelo and Raphael. That would be the trouble.

Suddenly Splinter wished he was not quite so full of toast.

Fighting back a sigh of resigned foreboding, Splinter did the only thing he could—he turned for the table and dropped the monstrous pancake onto the serving plate, wondering if he had ever come closer to tossing scraps between a pair of rabid dogs. And he wasn't wrong, on that count. As soon as the pancake touched down, Raphael's eyes locked onto it, and he swallowed his mouthful a little too hastily, so that his voice when he spoke was clouded with pancake.

"Nobody touch that one. It's mine," Raphael declared, sending a self-righteous glare around the table.

Leonardo and Donatello shared a look and then turned back to their breakfast, their eyes surrendering whatever claim they might have exercised—but Michelangelo only ate faster, shoveling tremendous chunks of pancake and whipped cream into his white-rimmed mouth.

"Hey—didja hear me, lamebrain?" Raphael asked, pounding his fist against the table. "That one's mine. You put one sticky finger on it and I swear…"

But Michelangelo just grinned at him around a very full mouth, and Raphael's eyes widened, cementing his realization that no reservations would stand this morning. The eldest turtle glanced down at his plate, but there was nowhere to stash a pancake that big while he finished his other one—so Raphael put his nose to the plate and stepped into his brother's arena, racing Michelangelo for the supreme pancake.

Once more Leonardo caught Donatello's eye, and the two young turtles stood up from the table, carrying their dishes with them. Donatello went straight to Splinter and latched onto his sleeve with one hand, holding his plate carefully flat so the syrup wouldn't drip.

"Make the baby pancakes now, Sensei," Donatello requested, trying to watch the table out of the corner of his eye. Splinter swallowed a sigh.

"I will do so, my son," he said, but in spite of his words Splinter did not reach for the remains of the batter. Instead he tapped one foot, glancing down at Donatello with a sliver of hope in his eyes. "If you are still hungry, you could have another full pancake…"

Donatello's face became strangely pinched. "Um… no thanks, Sensei. Just the baby ones."

Splinter turned his head. "Leonardo?" he tried.

"No thanks," his next to oldest returned, already wiping down his plate in the sink. "I'm full."

Splinter rubbed a hand across his forehead. There was truly no hope, then.

Back at the table, Raphael and Michelangelo had entered the final lap of their pancake race—and though Raphael seemed to be pulling ahead, barely chewing at all before he swallowed, Michelangelo was not far behind, streaks of cream lining his cheeks like war paint as he hurtled through his breakfast. At last it was Raphael who produced an empty plate, and he crowed in victory, lifting his triumphant fork above the trophy pancake.

"Ha! Take that, Mikey! Looks like your big mouth ain't good for anything after all—"

Michelangelo looked at his brother, and at the half pancake still filling his plate, and at the huge pancake between them. Then one quick hand darted forward and snatched the pancake from the jaws of Raphael's fork, drawing the older turtle's startled eyes up to his face.

"Hey, that's mine! Give it back, you little—"

But Michelangelo didn't wait for the end of the threat. He crammed Raphael's pancake whole into his already full mouth, chewing as hard as he could behind cheeks so stuffed it looked like he had hard-boiled eggs, not pancakes, inside. Raphael's jaw fell open. Donatello put a hand over his mouth. Leonardo put his head in his hands. And Splinter just sighed, wondering why it so often came to this.

"Hey Raph," Michelangelo said at last, talking through pancake and whipped cream and a great exultant grin. "You still want it back?" Then he opened his mouth, showing off the disaster Raphael's pancake had become.

"Why you—"

This time words alone could not express Raphael's anger, and he shot out of his seat, bumping the table and knocking dishes every which way as he dove for Michelangelo. But Michelangelo was one step ahead of him, as usual, and he skipped back into the living room, racing for the dojo with Raphael hot on his heels. Splinter was after them as fast as he could go, the other two turtles sprinting ahead of him.

"Uh oh, Raph—I'm not outrunning you, am I? I'm not running circles around you," Michelangelo taunted, doing just that as Raphael swung wildly at him. "You're not missing 'cause you're angry, right, Raph? You're not making dumb mistakes 'cause your baby brother _beat_ you in a pancake-eating contest!"

"Shut up!" Raphael yelled, missing his leg sweep as Michelangelo bounded away from him. "You did not beat me!"

"Whoa, you're right," Michelangelo sang out, ducking Raphael's haphazard fist and poking his brother once in the stomach. "My bad. I didn't beat you—I just outsmarted you. But hey, what else is new?"

"I said shut up!" Raphael roared. Michelangelo dodged backward with an easy handspring.

"Why? Am I bothering you? Is this distracting? It _that_ why you can't hit me?" Raphael growled and lunged at him, colliding none too gently with the wall as Michelangelo stepped aside. Then the younger turtle laughed, sticking out his tongue. "Or is it just all the energy I got from eating that great big delicious pancake—"

"Oh, that is it!"

"Raph, stop it!" Leonardo called, hurtling toward his brothers with Donatello in tow and Splinter a few steps behind. But Raphael did not stop—he swung at Michelangelo all the more roughly, upsetting a stand of staffs as Michelangelo slipped out of the way.

"Ha ha—missed me again. Mikey's got game, Mikey's got—" Then Michelangelo suddenly stopped, falling to his knees and clamping both arms across his plastron. "Oh, man. Mikey's got a wicked stomach cramp."

"That's not all he's got!" Raphael yelled, closing the distance to his crumpled brother. Michelangelo held up his hands in surrender, his eyes getting wider and wider with Raphael's increasing proximity.

"No, seriously, Raph—time out. I'm in some mega pain here. Out. Down for the count. I know I was baiting you, and I'm sorry, but—"

"Sorry isn't good enough!" Raphael shouted, sending one fist at his brother's head with all the force he could muster. Only Leonardo's flying leap, which knocked both older turtles backward onto the floor, prevented the blow from landing. Donatello ran to put his arms around Michelangelo's shoulders, and Splinter slowed out of his dead run, resting one hand against his pounding heart.

He was getting too old to chase four children around like this.

"Raph, how could you?" Donatello cried, hugging a still kneeling Michelangelo. "You almost hit him for real!"

"Did I look like I was playing patty-cake?" Raphael shot back, shoving Leonardo off of him and storming to his feet. "I'm gonna teach him a lesson even his thick skull understands—"

"Raphael."

There was something that came over Splinter's voice, every once in a while, that stopped sound in its tracks. Raphael froze halfway through his angry stride, all the words draining from his tongue as he looked up into those disapproving eyes for the second time that morning. Splinter stared right back, hands on his hips. Then the tired old rat flicked his chin at Michelangelo's seated form, directing his words to his next to oldest.

"Leonardo. Perhaps Michelangelo would benefit from a glass of water."

Leonardo nodded. "Sure, Sensei. Come on, Donny." And together they dragged Michelangelo from the dojo, kicking his feet weakly all the way.

"It was just a pancake, I swear! What did I do to deserve this, huh? It's not like I ate any nails or pennies or crayons or…"

Splinter shook his head as the voice faded into the distance. It was a funny attribute of karma that it could even get into your pancakes. But he had more important things to worry about at the moment—like the red-banded eyes that were hardening in his eldest's face, as the rage that his tongue couldn't release found a new harbor.

Splinter settled both hands atop his cane. "Raphael?"

Raphael gritted his teeth. "It's not fair!" he exploded, both fists shaking in front of him. "That was my pancake, and my cereal—and Mikey, that brat! Makes me so mad I just wanna—"

"Stop." Splinter held up one finger, enough to halt Raphael's words mid-sentence. Then he shook his head. "Finish that sentence in your mind, my son." Splinter paused a moment before speaking again, watching Raphael's face closely. "Now consider what you would have said. Is that truly what you want?"

Raphael's face was so angry that for a moment Splinter thought he might open his mouth again and force the words into the open. Then a change came over his face, and the anger fell away bit by bit, pulling his expression back into uncertainty.

Splinter tipped his head to one side. "What would you do, Raphael, if a stranger said they wanted to do that to Michelangelo?"

The anger was back in a second, along with the poised fists. "I'd—" Raphael began, but again Splinter cut him off, this time with a hand on his shoulder. His master sighed.

"I know you would, Raphael. And someday that anger and strength will serve not only you but your brothers well. That is why you should think carefully when you are angry, and tread softly, so that you do not become that stranger in your heart."

For a moment, Raphael looked up at him wordlessly, searching his face as though the key to his master's lesson might rest in those softening eyes. Then at last the little turtle dropped his gaze, scuffing one foot against the floor.

"I'm sorr—"

"It isn't me you need to tell," Splinter said, leading Raphael toward the door with a hand on his back. "Come. Perhaps Michelangelo has recovered by now."

Quietly they moved down the corridor to the kitchen, pausing just short of the doorway as Raphael hesitated. Then he drew himself up and marched through the open door, his voice loud and decisive in the quiet room.

"Mikey, I'm—"

"Hey, Raph! Hurry!" From his position atop a chair parked next to the stove, Michelangelo waved a spatula, grinning with all his might. "Come see what I made!"

"Michelangelo! What are you doing?" Splinter asked, more than a little worried to find his most energetic child perched so close to the stovetop. Especially when a closer look showed that Michelangelo was cooking, as well, browning small shapes on the griddle. He sent a sharp look at Leonardo, but his next to oldest was busy at the sink, rinsing the breakfast dishes and handing them to Donatello to dry.

"Come see!" Michelangelo said again, urging them over. "I made little turtles!"

And sure enough, he had—tiny turtle pancakes formed out of the remaining batter, all four of them frying side by side in the pan. Raphael stepped up and joined Michelangelo on top of the chair, adding another burned child to Splinter's list of worries. Raphael peered at the lumpy shapes, scratching his neck almost sheepishly.

"Is one of those me?" he asked, his voice rough with his interrupted apology. Michelangelo laughed.

"Yeah—the one with the tiny head! 'Cause I didn't know how else to represent your brain!"

"Why, you," Raphael growled, lifting a fist again—but when it came down, it was only to deliver a swift noogie to the top of Michelangelo's head. Splinter let out a relieved sigh and smiled to himself, and then over at his other two children, who were smiling, too, sharing a wink as they put the dishes away.

"Next time, I won't eat your pancake, Raph," Michelangelo promised. "That stomachache was obviously meant for you."

"All right, bonehead—you trying to pick another fight?"

But Raphael was laughing, and Michelangelo was laughing, too. And so Splinter only shook his head, wondering when—if ever—he could look forward to his sons growing out of this.

_End Chapter 4_


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Moving out of Donatello's section now. Sorry again, Donatello, for your short, short section.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Next time, I won't eat your pancake, Raph," Michelangelo promised. "That stomachache was obviously meant for you."_

"_All right, bonehead—you trying to pick another fight?"_

_But Raphael was laughing, and Michelangelo was laughing, too. And so Splinter only shook his head, wondering when—if ever—he could look forward to his sons growing out of this._

.x.

Had they ever grown out of it? The voices from the other room—Michelangelo's soaring laugh and Raphael's gruff counterpoint—seemed an argument against, reminding Master Splinter all too well of the great bickering thread that had sewn their childhoods together. Of course, all his children had had their trying moments. But he wondered if anything else had been so particularly trying as Michelangelo and Raphael's peculiar on-again, off-again squabblers-turned-best-friends-turned-squabblers-again relationship.

Well, perhaps Raphael and Leonardo's rivalry for control. Another thing that hadn't changed.

But how much really had changed, Splinter wondered as he lifted each of Raphael's pictures from his troubled floor. Here were the snapshots of his eldest's childhood, each one forming just another piece of the mosaic he had named Raphael. The green smudge across this one spoke of an impatient, careless finger, in a hurry to range ahead of his brothers. And the tails of harsh crayon strokes on the next one were one more portrait of the brash, contrary soul that had always found discipline such a difficult lesson to learn.

Perhaps it was qualities such as these that made Splinter think of Raphael as his firstborn. Of course, as a child Raphael had been bigger and stronger than his brothers, and that must have been part of it, too. But it was more than that. Raphael was headstrong in a way that not even Michelangelo had been, and determined to go his own way from the very beginning. In fact, it was that fierce independence that had led to Raphael being first in so many things himself.

.x.

"Uppy."

Splinter stared down at the little turtle with its arms raised, a pacifier clenched in one chubby hand. Then he put a hand to his head.

It was one of Donatello's difficult days.

"Uppy!" Donatello repeated with a little more force, rocking back and forth in his seat on the floor. Splinter looked down on his youngest with a mild frown.

"My son, I need to prepare lunch for you and your brothers," he told the young turtle, both hands falling to his hips. "Now is not the time to be picked up."

Splinter wasn't sure how much of his answer Donatello truly grasped, but he understood enough at least that his small, round face began to crumple, his eyes narrowing as his sparse words descended into a whimper. Splinter knew that face. And he knew there was nothing for it but to dip down and scoop Donatello into his arms, settling the unhappy child against the hip that was practically indented from his constant presence.

"Very well," the old rat soothed, patting Donatello's back with his free hand. "For now, you may accompany me. Though you have been awfully fussy today, Donatello…"

Donatello didn't understand that he was being given a lecture. He only understood that he had gotten what he wanted. So the little turtle slipped his pacifier into his own mouth and settled his head against his father's shoulder, cooing through the plastic barricade.

"Yes, yes," Splinter said, his standard response to sounds he did not understand. Which he often did not—especially now that he had managed to procure one of those blessed plugs for each of his children.

The pacifier. Had any piece of equipment ever been more suitably named?

"We must check on your brothers, Donatello," Splinter told his clingy son, stepping into the room where he had left his children to play and from which Donatello had escaped in search of his attention.

At least two of his children had stayed put. Leonardo was sitting right where Splinter had left him, puffing away at his blue-rimmed pacifier and holding a toy cow in one hand. He did not seem to be playing with it much—but then, Michelangelo was playing enough for both of them, flopped onto his stomach beside his brother with a fistful of the plastic animals in each hand. He was not sucking on his pacifier—the small orange plug was lying at his elbow, obviously discarded so that Michelangelo could make all manner of screeches and whoops as he shook his animals back and forth.

The little turtle scooted forward to shake his animals in Leonardo's face, possibly as encouragement for his brother to join in the game, and Leonardo looked back at him with something like consternation, which only made Michelangelo laugh. Splinter stepped up beside them and two sets of eyes turned to find his face, one gleeful and the other less so.

"Are you having fun, my sons?" Splinter asked, balancing Donatello carefully so he could reach down and retrieve a pig that was making its way under the couch. Michelangelo gave him all manner of meaningless syllables in reply, and Leonardo tapped his cow half-heartedly against the ground, as though trying to convince his father and himself that this game was as exciting as Michelangelo made it look.

Splinter swallowed his sigh. Leonardo never seemed to understand toys quite as well as his brothers…

But that was not his biggest concern at the moment. A quick glance into the room's corners had revealed that Donatello was not the only turtle who had made his escape, and Splinter straightened back to his full height, bouncing Donatello absently with one arm.

"Where is Raphael?" he asked the two present turtles, and Leonardo and Michelangelo shared a look, no doubt recognizing their brother's name in the question. Then Michelangelo shrieked and threw his animals into the air, which startled Leonardo rather badly, if careening backward onto his shell was any indication.

Splinter paused long enough to set the little turtle upright again, and then he turned to Donatello with a sigh, heading for the kitchen. "I suppose we must find Raphael before we begin lunch," he mused, shaking his head.

Donatello just pulled at his pacifier. Or rather, at Raphael's pacifier, Splinter observed, noticing the red decoration now that he looked more closely. More likely than not, that meant Raphael had made off with his youngest brother's pacifier sometime during Splinter's absence from the room—which might have been part of the reason for Donatello's fussiness. In either case, the little turtle and his stolen pacifier had to be somewhere in the lair, and Splinter set off to find them, with Donatello in tow.

There was no reason to be worried. It was not the first time Raphael had gone off on his own, after all.

That was what he told himself all through his first circuit of the lair. But when he reached the playroom again and was still one turtle shy of a full set, a tiny seed of doubt began to grow in his stomach. Once again he checked the gate that served as his front door, peering a little way down the tunnel outside in spite of its apparent security.

The gate was still higher than his children's heads, and Raphael was not walking yet, so it seemed unlikely that he could have climbed out into the sewers. But Raphael was stronger than his brothers—what if he had found a way out, and disappeared into the constant night of New York's lowest realm? Surely he couldn't have crawled out of earshot already?

"Raphael?" Splinter called, listening for the faintest echoes in the corridor beyond. But he heard nothing, and another tug proved that the gate was still latched—so with a heart that could not fight the weight of worry, Splinter turned back into the lair, beginning his search anew.

This time, he was thorough. He brushed back the blankets of his bed and dug through the box that held their dirty laundry, difficult tasks to perform with Donatello still wrapped in one arm. He even checked behind the television, though there wasn't nearly enough room for Raphael in that small gap. But there was no sign of his oldest son.

"Raphael," Splinter called again, moving from room to room. There was an edge in his voice now—even he could hear it, and Donatello seemed to sense the difference as well, stilling in his arms and clinging more ferociously to his master's robe. Splinter stepped back into the kitchen, checking under the table one more time. But there was no sign of Raphael anywhere…

_Clunk_.

Ninja senses on full alert, Splinter whirled and gazed around the kitchen, searching for the source of that noise. For a moment, there was nothing—then came another dull thud, accompanied this time by one wiggling cabinet door. A cabinet door just at the right height for a troublesome little turtle to crawl into…

With a knowing, aggravated hand, Splinter pulled the door open. Raphael looked up at him from his position between the crackers and the peanuts, sucking on the telltale purple pacifier and holding a box of cookies in his arms. Splinter put his free hand on his hip, giving Raphael a tired if expectant look.

"Well. There you are, Raphael." Raphael blinked up at his father, giving the box of cookies a decisive shake. Splinter managed to restrain his smile, shaking his head instead. "No, my son. No cookies until after lunch."

Raphael's eyes narrowed, his whole face darkening as he recognized the word 'no.' Then the little turtle took Donatello's pacifier out of his mouth and flung it across the room, starting into a heavy bawl as Donatello began to squirm in his father's arms, tearing up at the loss of his pacifier. Splinter pressed a hand to his forehead.

Someday, Raphael's independence was going to be one of his greatest strengths. Splinter knew that. What he didn't know was how they were going to get through all the time in between.

.x.

"Ninety-nine pieces of junk in the dump, ninety-nine pieces of junk!" Michelangelo sang out, digging through the rubble of the junkyard and emerging with a cracked rubber ball in his hand. "Pick one up, chuck it at Raph—"

"Hey!" Raphael shouted as the broken ball sailed over and smacked him in the shell. Michelangelo laughed, ducking down into the trash as Raphael ran at him.

"Thanks for the interruption, Raph—I wasn't gonna be able to make that rhyme, anyway!"

"You've got a lot more to worry about than making things rhyme," Raphael returned in a growl, diving into the pile where his brother had disappeared and abandoning his small sack of salvaged treasures.

"My sons," Splinter admonished in a soft voice, glancing around the darkened yard. "We must be quiet and complete our task quickly. We do not want to be found."

There were no guard dogs at this junkyard, and rarely any watchmen either. That was why Splinter chose this one above all the others, especially when his children were coming with him. But it was never too early to teach caution about the outside world—particularly to his loudest sons, who were never overly cautious about anything.

"Is it dangerous here, Sensei?" Leonardo asked, looking up at his father through the wiring and electronics Donatello had steadily been piling into his arms. Splinter tipped his head back, gazing up at the few stars New York's lights had not smothered.

"It is not safe," he answered simply, herding a few more pieces of tattered clothing into his bulging sack. Then he hoisted the bag over one shoulder, looking back to Leonardo's attentive face. "So little of the surface is," he concluded, giving the midnight dump another cautious glance. "That is why we must be on our way now."

"We're leaving already?" Donatello protested, crawling back out of the heap of trash with an old rotary phone in his arms. "There's still so much to find here."

"We will come here again," Splinter assured his youngest. Donatello's expression wavered with a pout, but his father sent him a stern look, interrupting the whine before it could begin. "Besides," Splinter added. "I am not sure how much more Leonardo can carry, Donatello."

Donatello blinked and glanced over at his brother, whose face was obscured almost to his eyes by the great mishmash of abandoned technology that he certainly hadn't retrieved himself. The youngest turtle hunched his shoulders, his smile a little sheepish.

"Sorry, Leo. I can take some of that."

"It's okay," Leonardo said, smiling back at him. "I've got it. You just hold onto that phone. It looks important."

Splinter, for his part, didn't know what Donatello wanted with a telephone. It wasn't as though they had much use for one. But Donatello accepted his brother's offer nonetheless, squeezing the phone in a hug that might have been for Leonardo had there not been so much technology between them. Splinter smiled a little, distracted for just a moment from his desire to leave by Leonardo's determination to carry a weight that was clearly a little too heavy for him—then he turned to face the rest of the junkyard, summoning his other children.

"Raphael. Michelangelo. We must go now." Splinter listened, but there was no response, nor could he see any errant orange and red faces popping up out of the trash piles. The old rat sighed. It was so like those two to stray mindlessly off by themselves when they had been specifically warned about caution…

"Raphael," he called again, picking up Raphael's orphaned bag and moving farther into the dump, keeping one ear cocked for any sounds of movement.

Donatello and Leonardo trailed behind him, Leonardo trying very hard not to stagger under the burden of Donatello's finds. "They're just messing around somewhere," Leonardo guessed, shaking his head in youthful disapproval. Splinter nodded shortly. He wouldn't be surprised. But he still needed to find them, and the sooner the better…

"Michelangelo," Splinter called, his voice losing a little of its natural patience. "Michelangelo, where are—"

There they were. Two dim shapes in the gloom ahead, accompanied by the clack of wheels and the telltale sound of Michelangelo's teasing laugh. As he drew closer, Splinter could see that Michelangelo was going around Raphael in circles, though the little turtle seemed to be moving too smooth and too fast to just be running. Splinter felt wrinkles settling into his brow. What was Michelangelo doing—and shouting about, to boot?

"Mikey to base, Mikey to base. We've got the fearsome Raphinator cornered—waiting for orders, over." Raphael swung at him, but Michelangelo was out of reach almost before his brother lifted a hand, riding triumphantly away on what Splinter could now make out to be a skateboard. Michelangelo laughed, circling Raphael again on his latest toy. "Oh—guess I'm just too fast for you, huh, Raph? Guess you're never gonna catch me now. Mikey's got mad skills times ten!"

"The second you get off that skateboard, Mikey—" Raphael threatened, lifting a fist for emphasis. Michelangelo blew a raspberry at him, detouring past Splinter as he went for another round.

"What, Raph? Not like you could keep up when I was on the ground anyway."

"You wanna try me again?"

"Stop it, Raph," Leonardo called, his tone seeming to imply that he was as tired of giving this lecture as Raphael had to be of getting it. "Master Splinter says it's time to go home."

"Mind your own beeswax, Leo!" Raphael shot back, snatching the air where Michelangelo had been seconds before. Leonardo huffed, looking up at his father as if to say 'I told you so.'

"Michelangelo," Splinter tried. "That is dangerous. Please come down—"

But Michelangelo wasn't listening. He was gaining momentum and swinging towards Raphael again, his mouth moving almost as fast as his wheels. "Mikey to base. We're going in for the final pass—the beast is on a rampage, but it's nothing we can't handle—" Then the skateboard hit a tiny obstacle in the dark, and Michelangelo's taunt turned into a high-pitched shriek, his arms flailing as the board threatened to tip and his balance went haywire. "Mayday! Mayday! We've been hit! We're going down, Captain—"

"Mikey!" Donatello screamed. Leonardo gasped.

"Michelangelo!" Splinter tried to run for his son, but even if he'd been able to reach the little turtle in time, his arms were far too full—

"Mikey!" Raphael shouted, running to meet the skateboard head-on with his arms up. "Jump! I'll catch you!"

"Abandon ship!" Michelangelo cried, leaping from the erratic vehicle and into his brother's arms.

The weight of his impact knocked Raphael back onto his shell and then sent them both into a tumble, and the skateboard, minus passenger now, flipped up into the air and skittered end over end across the concrete, finally landing with a crash in a pile of tin cans. For a moment the clatter of the indignant cans was the only sound in the junkyard—then Splinter and his two remaining sons ran for the tangle that Michelangelo and Raphael had become, hardly noticing the bits of metal that toppled from Leonardo's stack.

"Mikey! Raph!" Donatello called, fear written across his face. "Are you guys okay?"

There was a groan from the turtle pile, and then Michelangelo rolled off of his brother, shaking his head as though to clear it. Raphael sat up, too, trying without success to restrain his smile as he tapped his fist against Michelangelo's head.

"Shell for brains."

Michelangelo blinked at him for a moment, and Splinter breathed a sigh of relief that the crisis seemed to have passed without serious injury. Then Michelangelo laughed and threw his arms melodramatically around Raphael's neck, almost knocking his brother back to the ground.

"You saved me, Raph! You vanquished the evil skateboard! You're my hero!"

"Ah, get offa me, ya wimp," Raphael grunted. But it was easy to see how proud Michelangelo's words had made him—his entire face seemed a little brighter, as though something were glowing behind his smile.

Splinter was proud, too. Proud that for all that Raphael bickered and bullied and chased Michelangelo day in and day out, he was the first—always had been the first—to jump to his rescue.

"You're okay!" Donatello cried, abandoning his telephone as he raced forward to give Raphael another grateful hug. "You're the best, Raph," he told his oldest brother, as admiration pooled like tears in his eyes. Raphael cuffed him on the shoulder.

"You're just figuring that out?" he bragged, his grin widening a little with every compliment. Then the eldest turtle gave his brothers a nudge, leaning back on his hands and pushing himself to his feet. "I've had about enough of this dump. Let's head home."

"Not without my skateboard," Michelangelo said, apparently forgetting his prior quarrel with the unreliable vehicle. He grabbed Donatello's hand and leapt to his feet, dragging his younger brother toward the dangerous toy's resting place in the midst of the cans. "Come on, Donny—you should try it, too."

"I don't really want to," Donatello protested, following reluctantly in Michelangelo's wake. But once again Michelangelo wasn't listening, already focused on his prize.

"Hey, maybe you could fix it up for me, Donny! You could put, like, a super booster pack on the end, and then Raph could never keep up…"

Splinter had a feeling he was going to regret ever letting Michelangelo bring that questionable device home. But he let it go, because he had something more important on his mind at the moment. Step by patient step, Splinter moved forward to hand Raphael his forgotten gunny sack, placing his newly empty hand on his eldest son's shoulder.

"Thank you for taking care of your brother, Raphael," he said, giving the young turtle a slight smile. Raphael puffed out his small chest, brushing one hand across his face.

"Aw, that was nothing, Sensei," Raphael shrugged, though his smile seemed to disagree.

A step behind Splinter, Leonardo shifted his feet, keeping his gaze on Michelangelo and Donatello instead of meeting Raphael's eyes. "That was pretty cool," Leonardo said at last, taking his first steps toward the junkyard's exit even as he spoke. "Even though Mikey's a moron."

"Yeah, what else is new?" Raphael grunted, letting the compliment float by as though it meant nothing. But he hurried to catch up to Leonardo just the same, not too difficult a task since Leonardo's load was keeping his pace slow. Raphael slung his sack over one shoulder as casually as he could, clearing his throat as he drew even with his younger brother. "Hey, Leo—I've still got a lot of room in my bag. If you want…"

"I'm fine," Leonardo insisted, readjusting the technological mass in his arms. Raphael shrugged again, his voice perhaps just a touch too disinterested.

"Suit yourself. I was just wonderin' how you're gonna help Donny down the ladder if you're holding all that stuff. You know he hates going down alone."

Leonardo paused in his careful progression, and Raphael stopped with him, both turtles oblivious to the old rat watching their negotiations from a few paces back. Then Leonardo gave his brother a brief cease-fire smile, and Raphael dropped his bag back off his shoulder, nudging the younger turtle with his elbow.

"Nothin' with sharp edges, okay?"

"Hey, Leo, Raph! Wait for me!" Donatello called, chasing his brothers' footsteps and dragging Michelangelo and his rogue skateboard away from the distracting junk pile. And Splinter stood back for a moment to smile to himself, watching the shadows of his four children come together and merge into one shadow under the lights of the sleepless city.

There were days like this, too, after all.

_End Chapter 5_


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Moving out of Donatello's section now. Sorry again, Donatello, for your short, short section.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Hey, Leo, Raph! Wait for me!" Donatello called, chasing his brothers' footsteps and dragging Michelangelo and his rogue skateboard away from the distracting junk pile. And Splinter stood back for a moment to smile to himself, watching the shadows of his four children come together and merge into one shadow under the lights of the sleepless city._

_There were days like this, too, after all._

.x.

There was something wrong with Michelangelo.

Splinter couldn't figure out exactly what it was. It might have had something to do with his next to youngest's energy level—which was at an all-time low this afternoon, a change not only from his usual behavior but from the way he had woken up. At about the same time as usual, Michelangelo had tumbled out of bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as the saying went, with a sock static-electrically glued to his head, and he had managed to race around the lair once in full before Splinter could even catch him to pluck it off.

As the day went on, however, Michelangelo had begun to slump, the way Donatello generally did if he didn't get his afternoon nap. He seemed to have lost the last of his energy right around lunchtime, although in Michelangelo's typical way he could not even be calm without causing accidents: deciding to rest his head for a moment halfway through his sandwich, Michelangelo had put his head down right on the lip of a plate of Cheez-Its, sending the small orange missiles straight at Donatello. Donatello had been rather upset by the unexpected attack, but Michelangelo barely had the energy to get riled up about it.

And there was his appetite, too. The little turtle—usually such a voracious eater—had taken only a few bites of his sandwich, which had been surrendered to Raphael as leftovers. Even Michelangelo's brothers had noticed that his appetite was not up to par—noticed enough that Leonardo had offered Michelangelo his brownie, as if to test how seriously his brother's stomach was under the weather.

Michelangelo had found room for the brownie, at least.

But the biggest clue to Splinter that all was not right with Michelangelo was that he was now sitting with Raphael on the couch, watching an episode of Power Rangers—and the two were not fighting.

"All right! Go, Red Ranger!" Raphael shouted from the next room, and Splinter glanced out of the kitchen where he, Leonardo and Donatello were playing with dominoes to check on the two, able to see no more than the tops of their heads over the couch. But that was enough; even the top of Michelangelo's head seemed to be wilting, leaning against the arm rest as if watching television required all the energy he had to spare right now.

Which it must, after all. Michelangelo wasn't even teasing Raphael about the cartoon like he usually did, when he bothered to sit still and watch it in the first place.

"Did you see that awesome kick?" Raphael asked, nudging his brother's shoulder. "The red ranger's the best!"

Michelangelo did not nudge back, hardly even turning his head in Raphael's direction. "The orange ranger's better," he said. Raphael's forehead furrowed with his frown.

"There is no orange ranger, dummy. Are you even watching the show?"

"Then I like the purple one," Michelangelo persisted. Raphael shook his head.

"There's no purple one, either. Just red, blue and green."

That got Michelangelo's attention, at least a little, and he cocked an eye at the screen, studying the figures that were engaged in a battle of some kind. "But there's five," he said, one limp hand pointing at the screen.

Raphael scoffed. "Yeah—but pink and yellow are the girls. And you can't like one of them best."

"Then I like the blue one," Michelangelo said, his attention already drifting away from the screen.

In the kitchen, Splinter swallowed a wince, absently following Donatello's domino with one of his own as he watched Raphael stiffen on the couch. Michelangelo was too out of sorts this afternoon to care which Power Ranger he picked—as long as it wasn't the one Raphael liked, apparently. Splinter knew that. But Raphael didn't—that much was obvious from the way his eldest had straightened in his seat, tugging self-consciously at his own red bandana.

"Why the blue one?" he asked, the question almost barked at his tired little brother. Michelangelo titled his head, no doubt squinting at the screen.

"Because he's… taller," he answered finally. Raphael scowled at him.

"Yeah, so? The red ranger's the team leader, and he's the best fighter, too. Everybody listens to him, and he gets to fight all the big opponents. And red's the coolest color. So what if the blue guy's a little taller?" When he didn't get an answer, Raphael gave Michelangelo's shoulder a shake. "Hey, wait. Maybe he's not taller at all—look at them now. They're the same height. The green guy's the tall one. See? Hey, Mikey, you're not looking—"

With the force of unraveling patience, Raphael gave his brother another push. But Michelangelo did not even protest. His head dipped down to his chest, sagging like the rest of him—then he toppled off of the couch and landed on his face, not even waking when he hit the floor.

"Mikey!" Raphael shouted, leaping to his brother's side.

Leonardo and Donatello looked up from their dominoes at Raphael's cry, aware of the next room's proceedings for the first time—but Splinter was already on his feet, rushing for his downed son with all the speed his old bones could muster. As he hurried to Michelangelo's side, with the other two children right on his heels, Raphael jumped up and ran to meet him, eyes wide in his great frightened face.

"Help, Master Splinter!" Raphael cried. "I didn't mean to—I barely touched him—I think I killed Mikey!"

"Oh, no!" Donatello gasped, stopping in his tracks.

"You hurt Mikey?" Leonardo asked, his face a mix of astonishment and accusation.

"I didn't mean to!" Raphael repeated.

"Calm down, my sons," Splinter soothed, kneeling beside Michelangelo to check his breath, his pulse and—finally—his forehead. "Michelangelo is only a little sick; he has probably been sick all morning. He will be fine with a few days of rest. Come—let us get him into bed."

With the gentle hands of any parent tending a sick child, Splinter lifted Michelangelo and carried the little turtle to his room, three worried twitters following him like shadows. Then he shooed his remaining children out of the room, insisting that his next to youngest be given the peace and quiet to rest, since he clearly needed it.

"But Sensei, if Mikey's sick, we want to be here to help—" Leonardo began, but Splinter cut him off with a raised hand and a sharp look.

"You can help Michelangelo far more by giving him a chance to sleep," the old rat told him, glancing around at his other two reluctant sons as he spoke. "Now take your brothers into the kitchen, Leonardo, and continue the domino game. I trust you will not be any trouble while I take care of Michelangelo."

Leonardo hesitated for a moment, obviously wanting to stay—but in the end, he did as he'd been told, turning to take Donatello's hand and heading toward the kitchen. "Come on, Donny," he said, trying to reassure his youngest brother with a smile. "Sensei's taking care of him… he's gonna be fine. Let's wait until he wakes up." Over his shoulder, the young turtle added, "You, too, Raph."

But Raphael held his ground. "I'm stayin'," he announced, planting his stubborn feet in the doorway. "It's my fault Mikey fell over, and I'm not going anywhere until I know he's better."

Splinter couldn't help his sigh. "Raphael, Michelangelo was already sick. You are not to blame for this. Please go with your brothers, and allow me to care for him."

"But he's sick!" Raphael repeated, his eyes almost desperate as he looked up at his father. "It could be really bad. I gotta make sure he's okay!"

There was a smile tugging at the corner of Splinter's mouth—a smile for his tough, independent eldest son, who went so soft at the center when one of his brothers was in a bad way. A smile for the knowledge that, had he not been there himself, Raphael would have done everything in his young power to take care of Michelangelo—assisted, no doubt, by the two worried faces in the doorway. A smile for the heart Raphael kept hidden under so many layers of bravado most of the time.

But a smile was not going to get rid of them any faster, and Splinter did not want any little turtles crowding around his next to youngest—even very worried little turtles. So he folded his arms and gave Raphael another stern look, pointing to the hall with a no-nonsense expression.

"If you are that determined to wait, you may wait in the hall until Michelangelo wakes up. But you will leave this room now, Raphael," he said—and that was the end of that, whatever Raphael wanted. Splinter closed the door firmly behind his grumbling son, and then he turned back to Michelangelo and put the rest of the family from his mind. He only had so much energy to worry, after all.

For almost the first time in his life, Michelangelo was a quiet sleeper, and his stillness worried Splinter even more than his clammy skin or his unnaturally cold forehead. Splinter tucked the blankets closer around his third son and sat in meditation of the little turtle's face, watching each labored breath as though it were the lifeline that tied them together. His hands knew that the illness wasn't very serious, in spite of its sudden onset and how tight Michelangelo's face had become. He just couldn't seem to convince his heart of the same.

It was a matter of hours before Michelangelo opened his eyes—hours Splinter spent wiping sweat from his forehead and adjusting his blankets to surround his son in as much warmth as possible. But when two impish eyes finally did crack open, Splinter was still there holding his hand, with a smile for his son's first question.

"What time is it, Sensei? I'm totally starving."

"Past time for dinner, for those who did not have much lunch," Splinter answered, resting a hand against Michelangelo's shoulder. "How are you feeling, my son?"

"Hungry," Michelangelo repeated, both hands perching on the edge of his blanket. Splinter gave him a look.

"And otherwise?"

"Like maybe I don't want to get up yet," Michelangelo conceded, folding his arms behind his head. "I could definitely watch my favorite movie, though, or read a brand new comic book. I could probably even find the strength to beat Raph at a video game."

Michelangelo had always been cheeky, that was for certain. But considering how lackluster the little turtle had been earlier that day, Splinter was grateful for energy of any kind, even at his eldest son's expense. With a sigh for the incorrigible child curled up before him, Splinter rose and moved to the door, his eyes commanding Michelangelo to stay put.

"I will see what I can find you to eat, my son. Would you prefer—"

But Splinter never got to hear what kind of soup Michelangelo might have preferred. As soon as the door cracked open, Raphael appeared in the gap and tried to cram his way inside, alternately pushing at the door and staring up at his master.

"Is he okay, Sensei?" Raphael demanded, shoving at the doorknob. "Is he awake? Can I see him?"

Splinter had not actually expected his young charges to wait in the hall for news of their brother—but they had, if Raphael's speed and the slowly rising tangle of drowsy Donatello and anxious Leonardo were any indication. With a smile that crossed his face this time, Splinter pulled back the door a little farther, far enough that Michelangelo could wave to his brothers from the bed.

"Hey, guys!" he called, his voice weak from illness but not lacking in spirit. "Did anybody miss me?"

"Mikey!" Once again, Raphael was the first one inside, and he charged toward the bed with a ferocity Splinter almost mistook for anger before he landed at Michelangelo's side, his face an unmistakable portrait of worry. "Are you okay, Mikey? Are you really sick?"

"Sick of you spitting on me," Michelangelo told him, wiping one mocking hand across his face. "Geez, Raph—you wanna give me a few inches here?"

Raphael did not want to—that much was clear in his face. But he backed up a little nonetheless, shaking his head in memory. "Don't pull that fainting stunt on me again, Mikey," he said, his words far too soft to carry anything but worry. "You passing out is not something I want to see again anytime soon."

"You weren't _worried_ about me, were you, Raph?" Michelangelo teased, the taunt only a little strained. But for once, Raphael did not rise to the bait, only patting his younger brother's hand.

"Of course I was, you dunce. What'd you think?" Then he gave Michelangelo a very gentle noogie, a gesture without any of its usual force. "Hurry up and get better, okay, Mikey? It's no fun without you around."

Once again Splinter found that he was smiling at the sight of Raphael setting aside his ongoing quarrel with Michelangelo, the first one to rush for his brother and the first to ask after him when they usually fought so fiercely. But he was not quite finished smiling, it seemed, because Donatello stepped forward then with a piece of paper in his hands, scuffing one shy foot against the ground.

"Raph, you left this in the hall," the youngest turtle whispered, leaving Leonardo's side for a moment to hand Raphael the sheet. Raphael seemed to color just a little at the exchange, and then he turned back to Michelangelo, holding out the paper with a determined expression.

"Oh, yeah. Here, Mikey. I made this for you… as a get-well-present, you know."

Michelangelo took the picture and studied it for a moment, and then he blinked, glancing up at his oldest brother. "Is this an orange Power Ranger?" he asked, brandishing the drawing for all to see.

It certainly was—as Raphael's short nod confirmed even more than the spindly crayon figure on his paper.

Michelangelo considered the picture for a moment, and then he shook his head, sending Raphael a heavy frown. "Come on, Raph—even I know there isn't an orange ranger. How dumb can you get?"

Raphael's jaw hit the floor, indignation warring with surprise for its place in his expression. "But—but on the couch… you were the one talking about the orange ranger! You said it was your favorite!"

"I did?" Michelangelo asked.

"Yeah!" Raphael affirmed, his voice growing stronger with every assertion. "You said it was your favorite. You're the one who doesn't know your Power Rangers, not me."

Michelangelo paused to think about that for a minute; then he leaned back into the pile of cushions bunched around his head, considering Raphael with thoughtful eyes. "So… you drew the orange ranger just because I said it's my favorite? Even though it doesn't exist?"

"Well, I mean…" Raphael shifted a little in his seat on the lip of the bed. Then he straightened in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, okay, fine. I guess that's what I'm saying. I drew it 'cause it's your favorite."

Michelangelo reached out to put a hand on Raphael's arm, looking for a moment almost truly speechless. "Gee, Raph, I don't know what to say… it's just that…"

"Yeah?" Raphael prompted.

Michelangelo's face lit up with a grin. "It's just that you really suck at drawing."

Raphael raised a hand as though his brother had a fist in his near future—but in the end, he only laid it against Michelangelo's arm, half smiling and half grimacing at his most trying younger brother. "Well, if you're so good, maybe you can teach me how to draw when you get better, hotshot," Raphael offered, nudging Michelangelo ever so gently as he said it.

"But I'm the best drawer!" Donatello protested, offended by his absence from the lesson plan.

"Donny…" Leonardo started.

"You just draw those weird boxes," Raphael cut in, interrupting Leonardo with his dismissal. "Who wants to learn to draw that?"

"They're not boxes—they're diagrams," Donatello said, pronouncing the last word carefully. "And they can be really important!" Then the youngest turtle turned to his constant source of affirmation, yanking a little on Splinter's arm as his face clouded with wounded pride. "Right, Sensei? I'm the best drawer. Right?"

Splinter put a hand to his head, lamenting their move out of harmony into crisis again. When one of his brothers was in trouble, Raphael had a devotion that couldn't be equaled—and that Splinter admired in him. He only wished Raphael's devotion did not always involve upsetting everyone else.

.x.

"These are awesome!" Michelangelo shouted.

"Mine are better," Raphael insisted.

"Why is mine so heavy?" Donatello whined.

"Thank you, Sensei," Leonardo said, the only one of the pack who remembered to bow. But Splinter had more important things on his mind at the moment than courtesy. For example, how much damage four young ninjas could do to life, limb and property now that their troublemaking was not restricted to their hands. Now that they had tools to utilize in their eternal pursuit of mayhem.

"Lookit what I can do!" Michelangelo announced, spinning his nunchaku helter-skelter in all directions and instantly, apparently, forgetting everything he had ever learned about weapons safety.

"Be careful, my sons," Splinter cautioned, taking a step back to keep out of Michelangelo's excited, unfocused way. "I do not want you to hit yourselves, or each other."

"Don't worry, Master Splinter!" Michelangelo chirped, as though he knew the lecture was meant for him. "I'm always super-careful with anything dangerous. I wouldn't swing these around if I wasn't totally in control of what I was—ow!"

"Way to go, Mikey. Right on cue," Raphael said, shaking his head as Michelangelo rubbed a softly bruising shoulder where his weapon had clipped him. The elder turtle pulled both sai from his belt, twirling them experimentally around his hands. "Why don't you step back and leave this one to the real ninjas?"

"So, I guess you're out, too, huh Raph?" Michelangelo teased, ducking the customary swing that followed comments such as that.

"Say that again," Raphael dared him, swiping at Michelangelo.

"Okay," Michelangelo said with a grin. "Raph's a sucky ninja, Raph's a sucky ninja—"

"Mikey's gonna be a pincushion!" Raphael warned, his grip tightening on his new sai.

"Raphael!" Splinter admonished, stepping in between them and catching his eldest's wrist. "Do not swing at Michelangelo with a weapon in your hand. That is dangerous."

"Does that mean I can swing at him if I put it down?" Raphael growled, his eternal stubbornness raising its head for a moment.

But Splinter's expression said he was not in the mood for games—or even the strange cross between a game and a full-fledged fight that Michelangelo and Raphael's bickering usually became—so Raphael gave his younger brother one more look and retreated to his own corner of the dojo, focusing his irritation into the movement of his weapons instead. Splinter glanced over his brood in their various forms of practice and had to sigh, though he did not know himself what kind of a sigh it was.

This was a day Splinter had been anticipating—and dreading—for a long time. The day his sons chose the weapons they wanted to take as partners for the rest of their ninja careers; the point at which all his training and the natural shapes of their souls melded into one particular object, an object that would define them for the remainder of their lives. The first step of many toward the day they would face the world with their own strength, their own hands, and the tools that suited them best.

Had it been a long time coming, or had it come too soon?

With an exhale for the unanswerable question, Splinter moved to scrutinize each of his children in turn, his eyes resting first on Leonardo performing his careful kata.

Leonardo had chosen the sword—well, he had wanted two swords, but Splinter had asked him to wait on the second one, since even one sword was a great deal for a child to master. Leonardo had obliged him, as he always did. And watching him now, every motion precise and disciplined, Splinter knew there was no weapon better suited to his second son. It was a strong weapon, and one that required skill and practice to use—but more than anything, it was a weapon of honor, because to duel by sword was to stand against an opponent face to face, on a field of open combat. Leonardo did not approach his battles any other way.

Donatello's weapon had been chosen for him long before today—still, there was no denying the glow on the youngest turtle's face as he practiced with the bo that was truly his for the first time, swinging the staff easily through a series of basic blocks. Donatello liked the distance his weapon gave him—and that was as much out of mercy as fear, Splinter knew, because Donatello had always been the most reluctant to accept the idea of hurting others. With distance came any number of options to explore besides confrontation. And the bo was a versatile weapon, which suited Donatello's intelligent if not overly zealous manner of fighting. But Splinter knew that the bo's greatest advantage, in his youngest's mind, was that it was made of wood, and that much less likely to deliver a lethal first strike.

Of course, Raphael had chosen a weapon that was completely opposite of his youngest brother's. Splinter shook his head a little, watching his eldest pantomime a fight against a handful of invisible enemies, his smile as strong as each strike of his sai. Raphael had always been one to confront his problems head-on and hand-to-hand—and with their close range, the sai were truly just an extension of his fists, so close to the wielder that every fleeting whim of movement or temper flowed through the weapons as well. Sai as weapons demanded a reckless rush, a master who would stand dead center of a fight—and there was nowhere else Raphael would be, after all.

Michelangelo had also chosen a weapon that mirrored him in every way: unpredictable, erratic, incredibly difficult to control. Which was the worst possible choice in the hands of an unpredictable, erratic, uncontrollable young turtle, and meant he was no doubt going to put an eye out.

As Splinter had already told him several times.

"Deep beneath the streets of New York lurks the greatest martial arts master of all time, ready to do battle with the city's most fearsome goons. Opponents tremble at the sound of his name and the unstoppable whirling of his nunchucks. Is it Jet Li? Jackie Chan? Oh no—it's the one and only, the totally-real-ninja-weapon-carrying hero, Michelangel—ow!"

Splinter put a hand to his head, hardly daring to turn around and discover what his next to youngest had done to himself now. Michelangelo hopped by on one foot, clutching his left leg.

"It's okay, everybody! It's just the knee—no need to fear." Michelangelo stopped to strike a one-legged pose, his voice upbeat in spite of his injury. "The great Michelangelo will be back in business as soon as his leg stops doing that tingly thing."

"Hey, lamebrain," Raphael called. "Why don't you try hitting something else for once? Not that it isn't funny watching you get tenderized over there…"

"Be careful, Mikey," Leonardo warned, glaring at Raphael over the blade of his sword. "You don't want to put an eye out."

"Thanks, Master Splinter," Michelangelo returned, before his face took on an expression of overdrawn surprise, complete with big eyes and a wide open mouth. "Hey, Master Splinter—when'd you get so small and green? And what happened to all your hair? You look just like Leo!" Raphael snickered, but Leonardo just rolled his eyes and stepped back into his form, barely sparing his brothers a shake of his head.

Master Splinter sighed. When the stress of parenthood did finally rob him of all his hair, he knew Michelangelo would be on the other side of the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Sensei?" It was Donatello's voice that drew the old rat's attention from his most unruly son. Splinter glanced down into his youngest's hopeful face, his expression automatically softening as he met Donatello's great timid stare. Donatello shifted his feet, holding his staff to his chest. "Can you help me with my form? I still don't get this part in the middle. I mean, I do—I remember it and everything. I just can't make it look right…"

"How something looks is entirely a matter of perception," Splinter said, a hand on Donatello's shell propelling the small turtle back to his practice area. "You should focus on technique, not presentation. But come—let me see what the difficulty is."

The difficulty was more in Donatello's reluctance and his shyness than in his movements—and as those shortcomings were much more trouble to correct than a change in stance, all of Splinter's attention was on his youngest for the next few minutes. Which is why he didn't notice until far too late that Raphael had begun moving, quite unconsciously, into the ten-foot ring everyone had left around Michelangelo and his disastrous choice of weapons. Raphael was absorbed in the combat of his mind, and Michelangelo's attention was divided as usual between his toys and his mouth, and so neither turtle noticed as they backed ever closer to each other, wielding their deadly weapons.

"Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of this!" Michelangelo cried suddenly, ducking a nunchaku that was winging toward his nose. "Hey, Sensei!" he shouted, turning to find his master. "Look what I can do! It's a one-handed, over-the-head, skull-cracking—"

_Smack_.

Splinter did not turn in time to see Michelangelo's trick. He only glanced over in time to see one orange-handled nunchaku crashing into Raphael's face, a spectacular blow to the eldest turtle's unsuspecting left eye. The bottom dropped out of Splinter's stomach as there was a moment of silence, all sound in the dojo strangled by that one momentous snap. Then…

"Ow!" Raphael shouted, dropping his sai and slapping two hands over his eye.

"Oh, no!" Michelangelo shrieked, dropping his nunchaku and jumping back three feet in surprise.

"Ahh!" Donatello screamed, both hands rushing to cover his mouth.

"Raph! Mikey!" Leonardo cried, sheathing his sword and running to his brothers. Raphael was still reeling, and Leonardo grabbed his shoulders, steadying his older brother and trying to question him at the same time. "Raph, are you okay? What happened?" he asked, glancing at Donatello and Splinter as they rushed to surround the injured turtle.

Michelangelo's face had gone decidedly olive, his voice so high and fast that his explanation was barely intelligible. "I clocked him right in the face, Sensei," he proclaimed, grabbing Splinter's sleeve as the old rat tried to navigate the knot of his frenzied, frightened children. "I mean, not on purpose. I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry, Sensei—but he sneaked up behind me. And I didn't know Raph _could_ sneak, or I'd have been looking for him, I promise." Michelangelo's eyes were very wide in his young face, scared and confused as he looked up at Splinter. "When you said I'd put an eye out, I thought you meant mine!"

Splinter sighed, sparing one hand to pat Michelangelo's shoulder. "It will be all right, Michelangelo."

"But I slammed him right in the eye—like, with every ounce of strength I have," Michelangelo pressed, his hands almost shaking with anxiety. "I hit him so hard he's probably gonna have a bruise there forever! So hard I maybe put a dent in his skull—"

"Aw, shut up!" Raphael growled, shoving a worried Leonardo away from him and sending a one-eyed glare at Michelangelo. "Get your paws off me, Leo. And stop mouthing off, Mikey. That wimpy hit wasn't nothin'. It doesn't even hurt."

"Seriously?" Michelangelo asked, his worried eyes widening yet further as he stared back at his brother. "Because I really put all I had into that, Raph—like, no-holds-barred, do-or-die, one-hit KO style—"

"Are you apologizing or bragging?" Raphael demanded, freeing himself of Leonardo at last and taking a step back out of the muddle. "Look, I said it's nothing, didn't I? You and your pansy nunchucks couldn't get the better of me. I don't even feel it anymore."

That was a lie. Splinter could tell by the way his eldest was clenching his teeth, and the fists his small hands were still unwilling to release, trembling just a little as he held back the pain. But Splinter let him keep his brave, swaggering, selfless lie, since he knew it was as much for Donatello's wide eyes and Michelangelo's stricken expression and even Leonardo's anxious hands as for Raphael himself.

"Whether it hurts or not," Splinter said, nudging Leonardo aside so he could kneel in front of his eldest as last, "I need to see it. Damage to the eye should not be ignored."

"I'm fine," Raphael protested, but he let his father press soft fingers to the livid, rapidly swelling side of his face. Beside him, Donatello took hold of Splinter's other sleeve, his terrified eyes moving from Raphael to his master and back again.

"Is it really bad, Sensei?" the youngest turtle asked, digging six fingers into the thick cloth of his robe. "Is it?"

Splinter had certainly seen worse, in his days as the pet rat of a renowned guardian. But Leonardo beat him to an answer, leaning toward Raphael around his master's shoulder and studying the injury himself.

"It sure is swelling a lot," he said, his voice deathly serious.

"Oh no," Donatello moaned. Splinter sent his second son a look for fanning the flames of an already tense situation—but it was Michelangelo who truly started the wildfire, grabbing onto Leonardo's arm and staring at Raphael with curiosity and fear.

"Master Splinter," Michelangelo almost whispered. "Is he gonna lose that eye?"

All four of his children stiffened at the suggestion—then three little voices started up at the same time, each one feeding the worry and panic running rampant through the others.

"It's so red," Leonardo said, taking Michelangelo's hand. "Look—it's already swelling shut."

"I don't want Raph to lose an eye," Donatello whimpered, pressing closer to his father as tears threatened to roll down his cheeks.

"Is it even still there?" Michelangelo asked, leaning into Leonardo to get a better look at Raphael's face. "It didn't explode, did it, Sensei? It didn't just pop?"

"Children, please—" Splinter tried.

"Is he gonna have to wear an eyepatch forever and ever?" Michelangelo interrupted frantically, practically jumping up and down in an attempt to get to Raphael. "Like a pirate? A ninja pirate?"

"I don't want Raph to be a pirate!" Donatello cried, breaking out into real tears at last.

"Don't try to open it, Raph," Leonardo advised. "Don't do anything that might make it worse—"

"Aw, knock it off, all of you!" Raphael shouted, shaking himself loose from Splinter and glaring at all of his brothers in turn. "Quit being a bunch of babies. There's nothing wrong with me," he argued, stomping one emphatic foot against the ground. But Splinter could see that his face was growing paler with every word, a sure indicator of the fear he was doing such a good job of disguising.

"But Raph—" Leonardo tried.

"But nothing," Raphael cut in. "It doesn't hurt and it's no big deal. And I'm not gonna lose an eye. Right, Sensei?" he added, turning to his father. And Splinter spared a smile for his headstrong, resilient, very brave, very nervous son.

"No, my son," Splinter said, resting both hands on Raphael's relaxing shoulders. "There is no real damage. Your eye will be fine in a day or two." Then he stood and turned Raphael toward the kitchen, listening as three more sets of footsteps fell in behind him. "Come, Raphael. Let us find some ice for your eye."

"It doesn't hurt," Raphael insisted, walking a little taller. Splinter swallowed his chuckle.

"Of course not," he said. "The ice is only to reduce the swelling."

"Oh. Well, good," Raphael mumbled, looking away from his master's knowing eyes.

There was a smatter of running steps behind them, and then Donatello appeared at his eldest brother's side, wiping at his frightened tears.

"Raph," Donny said, a smile creasing his face again. "I just wanted you to know. You're the toughest big brother ever."

Splinter had a feeling his words were going to heal Raphael's wound even faster than the ice.

.x.

"Alas, cruel world! This is the worst one yet!"

Michelangelo's voice pulled Splinter's attention momentarily from the collection of pictures, turning his wise old eyes back toward the rest of the ruined lair. His sons were still out of sight—looking through their rooms in search of salvage, perhaps—but Michelangelo was never too far away to make an impression, and Splinter rarely had to be present to understand his son's difficulty, since Michelangelo used his words so well.

"I can't look, Raph. Is there anything left? Anything at all we can save?"

"Yeah—my sanity, if you'll quit whining. And get off me."

"It's just a trophy, Mikey," Donatello put in, his voice farther away.

"It's not just a trophy!" Michelangelo called back, accompanied by a tinkling that might have been his hands gathering broken pieces. "It's my Battle Nexus Championship trophy! It's my solid-gold proof that I'm the best fighter in the Battle Nexus. It's my pride and joy!"

"Ha. Better it's gone, if you ask me. Maybe now you can shut your big mouth about that fluke victory of yours."

"You mean, _both_ of my fluke victories, Raph?" Michelangelo asked, a definite snicker in his voice. "Or do you just mean my victory over you? 'Cause that wasn't really tied to the trophy—I carry it in my heart always, and it keeps me warm at night."

"Why, you—"

"Ah, back to the old catch-me-if-you-can, huh, Raph?"

"That's enough, guys," Leonardo said, entering the conversation at last. "We don't have all night to do this—pack what you can and keep moving."

"I will, Leo—honest!" Michelangelo called. "Just as soon as Raph stops chasing me."

"I'll stop chasing you just as soon as you shut your mouth," Raphael snapped.

"Whoops, sorry—never learned that one," Michelangelo laughed. "Anything else I can do for you?"

"Get over here," Raphael returned.

In spite of their bickering, Splinter chuckled to himself, straightening the pictures in his arms and smiling at the superhero that had been colored too heavily by an impatient little hand. It was true: silence was a lesson Michelangelo had never learned. Even as a child, from the moment he discovered sound he had rarely been quiet, not the first one to talk but certainly the first one to take advantage of his gift for words. In fact, he had been something of a babbler. And there was a short period of time, not exactly when he began to talk but a little while afterward, when Michelangelo was almost unintelligible. Which had led, now that Splinter thought of it, to another of Raphael's firsts—perhaps his most dubious.

.x.

"Lookie, Sensei! Look'it I made!"

With triumph that brightened every inch of his little face, Donatello held aloft a piece of paper folded into a strange triangle. Splinter put a hand to his whiskers, trying to determine what manner of praise was appropriate here.

"Why Donatello, that's… a very nice shape," Splinter tried.

Donatello's tightening face told him that hadn't been the right answer. "Can' you tell what it is?"

Splinter opened his mouth to try again, conscious as always of how delicate Donatello's composure tended to be—but fortunately, Michelangelo got his voice in first, and he had managed to figure out the paper's purpose, spinning in a circle with the tiny vessel held aloft.

"S'a plane! A plane, Sensei! See, th'plane go's zoom zoom neer…" Michelangelo ran around the kitchen table, momentarily drawing Leonardo's attention away from the picture he was coloring. "Wow, Donny! It's the bes'! It's the bes' plane ever!" he announced, giving his younger brother an excited hug.

Donatello swelled up with pride, and Splinter smiled at him, relieved that deciphering the craft project had been taken out of his hands. "That is a very nice plane, Donatello," Splinter said, patting his youngest on the shoulder. "I am very proud that you learned to make that all by yourself."

"Ca' I play wi'thit, Donny?" Michelangelo tugged on his brother's arm, then turned to his father with a glorious smile. "I'ma play with it'wi Raph 'cas Raph's th'kong an' I gon'be th'driver, okay? Okay, Sensei?" Michelangelo asked, eyes bright as Donatello happily handed over his plane, glad for the praise. "Can I do that? Can I play wi'Raph n'th'plane n'kong, Sensei?"

That was the trouble with Michelangelo. He had learned to talk, and heavens did he ever love to do it. He had not yet learned, however, to annunciate or to finish his words, and his natural excitement led him to talk so fast that Splinter was lucky if he understood every fifth word. In particular, Michelangelo tended to talk faster the longer he went—so that by the end of his question, Splinter had understood little more than 'Raph,' 'play' and that he was being asked permission.

The old rat tried to string all of the jumbled words together in his mind and make a little more sense of them, but in the end he could only shake his head, giving Michelangelo a preemptively stern look. "Play nice with your brother," he instructed, earning an earnest grin from his next to youngest. "And be careful with Donatello's plane."

"Don' worry, Sensei," Michelangelo had said, hugging the plane to his chest and crumpling it a little in the process. "I'm alway'caref wi'Donny's stuff, n' I love pwayin wih'Raphi!" And with that, he ran for the next room, calling for Raphael at the top of his young lungs.

It was not until Raphael began to shout and Michelangelo came running back with the plane ripped to shreds that Splinter realized Michelangelo had been asking for permission to play King Kong, with his eldest and most temperamental brother nominated for the monster's role. Through Donatello's tears for his ruined plane, Leonardo's sermon about his older brother's temper and Raphael's tantrum about having the paper vehicle poked into his arm over and over, Splinter tried to lecture his third son about bothering his brother—but he only got a pair of wide eyes in response, accompanied by an equally surprised mouth.

"But I tol'you!" Michelangelo protested, sending his father a disbelieving stare. "I tol'you I wanted t'play w'Raph n' th'kong, n' you jus' said be careful! An' I was careful, Sensei—Raph broke Donny's pla', not me!"

"Did you really tell 'im he could, Sensei?" Raphael demanded, glaring up at his master with two angry, indignant eyes. Splinter put a hand to his head. Would it be better or worse to admit that he hadn't understood a tenth of what Michelangelo said?

"Please settle down, children," Splinter soothed. Donatello wanted to be picked up, but the old rat already had his hands full separating Michelangelo and Raphael, so he hoped his youngest would settle for a soft look. "It is all right. Raphael, you are not seriously hurt. And Donatello can make another plane."

"But I don' wanna," Donatello started. "I a'ready made a plane—that plane."

"Yes, my son," Splinter said, shooing all three of his unhappy children into seats around the table. "But now we are all going to make paper planes, and you must show your brothers how. You like to teach them how to make things, don't you, Donatello?"

His youngest looked skeptical, but in the end he agreed, and it only took another five minutes of cajoling before Raphael and Michelangelo were induced to participate in the lesson as well, producing, once they got into a race, pile after pile of badly made paper planes. Michelangelo chattered on in a language that Splinter couldn't understand more than a word of, and Raphael argued back, proof enough for their master that his children somehow understood each other. But arguing and trying to outdo each other in the production of paper planes was tame enough, in a universal sense, so Splinter let them be, taking a moment to lean back against the cabinet and watch his children with tired, bemused eyes.

What did it mean for their lifestyle, that an activity like this counted as peaceful?

Unfortunately for Splinter's slowly settling headache, they hadn't gotten all that far when Michelangelo, babbling away at his eldest brother and not paying attention to where he put his hands, accidentally made a paper plane out of Leonardo's finished drawing instead—a fact no one realized until he threw the colorful missile at Raphael.

"What's this?" Raphael asked, turning the airplane over in his hand.

"Whoa, look a'that one!" Michelangelo cried, alerting Leonardo to the theft.

"Hey! Sensei, that's my pic'ture," Leonardo protested, turning to his father with injustice written all over his face.

"Michelangelo," Splinter reproved.

"I'din mean to!" Michelangelo cried, bouncing with urgency in his seat as his words spiraled out of Splinter's understanding. "I'din mean to, ho'est, Sensei! I's jus' makin a plane t'zoom wi'Raph an' Leo's pi'ture was right there, Sensei—right there!"

It was little consolation to Splinter that Leonardo, for his part, looked like he didn't understand any more of Michelangelo's apology—or was it just a defense?—than Splinter did. But the same was not true of Raphael, who barked out a laugh and jumped up from the table with the plane still in his hands.

"Ha. That's 'cause yer dumb, Mikey. I woulda knowed it was Leo's pict'cha."

"Yeah, but then you'd've done it anyway, 'cas you're a great big bully! That's why you haf'ta play th'Kong," Michelangelo sang out. Then he was on the run, taunting the furious turtle who seemed to live snapping at his heels. "Raphi's th'Kong! Raphi's th'Kong!"

"I'm gonna pound ya, Mikey!" Raphael shouted. And then they were out of the room, no more than a series of shouts chasing their way deeper into the lair.

"They took my pic'ture!" Leonardo said, standing up as well and running to stand at Splinter's side. Donatello was right behind him, though he went farther, throwing himself into Splinter's robe and wrapping his arms around his father's waist.

"I don' wanna make planes anymore, Sensei. I don' wanna!" the little turtle cried. Splinter put a hand to his head. Part of him knew that leaving Michelangelo and Raphael to their own devices was bound to lead to trouble. But there were two upset young turtles right in front of him, and Splinter only had so many hands.

"We won't make planes anymore," Splinter said, pressing a calming hand to Donatello's shell. Then he turned to Leonardo, his eyes requesting tolerance, as they so often did, from his second son. "You have many pictures, Leonardo. Surely it would be all right for Raphael and Michelangelo to play with that one?"

"They're not playing!" Leonardo objected, his hands wound into tiny fists. "They're just breaking it."

"Sometimes there are things that matter to us, and yet we lose them," Splinter counseled, lifting tearful Donatello into his arms. "At times like this, it is best to remember those things that matter the most of all to us, and not to let the world upset us by taking the rest."

Leonardo looked away to consider that, though there was still a decided sulk on his face—and truly, Splinter couldn't blame him, because if it had been a different day and a less troublesome mood about the lair, he would have chased Michelangelo and Raphael down and chastised them for ruining Leonardo's picture. But he had no time or energy for that today. The only thing he truly had the energy to do was lead his two remaining sons to the couch and settle them down around a storybook, praying for at least a few moments of peace.

A few moments he was granted. But the peace did not last—when did it ever?—because before Splinter could even finish reading the first book, Michelangelo and Raphael burst into the room, running together for once instead of one chasing the other.

"Master Splinter!" Michelangelo cried, skidding to a stop at the edge of the couch. "Hurry, Master Splinter—th'ranger was living in'th wash' an' then it started an' he's still there!"

Splinter set Donatello aside and rose, staring at his next to youngest with baffled eyes. "What was that, Michelangelo?"

"Th'ranger!" The little turtle repeated, speaking faster and faster as his panic level rose. "Th'ranger was in'th wash' an' then it start', but he's doesn' need a bat', Sensei—an' Raph tried to op'n th'door an' s'stuck! Is'stuck!"

"Raphael is right here," Splinter said, again missing everything but his eldest's name. "You must calm down, Michelangelo—I can't understand you when you speak this way."

"Sensei, didn' you hear him? He said we were playing—" Raphael tried; but the knowledge that his message wasn't getting across only made Michelangelo more frantic, and he interrupted Raphael, pulling on Splinter's arm with all his might.

"We were play'n the laud'ry room, an' th'ranger lives in the wash' 'chine, Sensei—an' the door got shut an' then the 'chine—"

With a great _whap_, Raphael lifted a hand and smacked his brother on the back of the head, forcing Michelangelo's neck forward and startling the little turtle into silence. For a moment, neither one spoke, Michelangelo staring at the floor with great surprised eyes—then he shook his head as though resetting, and looked up at his master again, his words intelligible for the first time.

"Raph's ranger is stuck in the washin' machine, and it turned on!"

"Oh, my sons," Splinter said, recognizing at last the crisis on hand. Then he rushed for the laundry room, Michelangelo and Raphael chasing his heels. There would be no end to it if anything permanent happened to Raphael's power ranger action figure…

"You've gotta get him out of there, Sensei!" Raphael cried.

"Help him, Master Splinter!" Michelangelo chimed in. "Th'evil wash' monst'r will take all'is color an' he'll come out pink like my shirt!"

Once again Raphael delivered a sharp smack to the back of his brother's head, earning a yelp from Michelangelo, and Splinter paused, turning back for one moment from his race for the laundry room to give his eldest a critical look.

"Why are you hitting your brother, Raphael?" he asked. Raphael shrugged.

"It was useful."

"It was useful before," his master clarified. "Why did you hit him just now?"

"'Cause there's no way I'm gonna have a pink power ranger!" Raphael barked. "Pink is for girls!"

Splinter fought back the urge to wince. Its marginal usefulness aside, he had a sinking feeling that Raphael learning to smack Michelangelo was a lesson he would come to regret.

_End Chapter 6_


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Moving out of Donatello's section now. Sorry again, Donatello, for your short, short section.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Why are you hitting your brother, Raphael?" he asked. Raphael shrugged._

"_It was useful."_

"_It was useful before," his master clarified. "Why did you hit him just now?"_

"'_Cause there's no way I'm gonna have a pink power ranger!" Raphael barked. "Pink is for girls!"_

_Splinter fought back the urge to wince. Its marginal usefulness aside, he had a sinking feeling that Raphael learning to smack Michelangelo was a lesson he would come to regret._

*

Perhaps that particular first had been Raphael's most enduring legacy.

There was an anonymous crash from the other room, and Splinter glanced over his shoulder, wondering whether the hotheaded turtle he'd been remembering might have been the cause of that, too. His hand strayed down the pictures he was holding, lifting them apart so he could see the full spread of Raphael's at the same time. How many of them sported torn edges, from a tug of war over what Raphael considered to be his. How many were crinkled under a mindless elbow, with the impatience of a child who followed his passions wherever they led him, meeting every problem head-on. And how many of them had small guest illustrations in another turtle's hand, evidence of the friendship Raphael had cultivated with his brothers, and sometimes just not been gentle enough to grow with careful hands.

The urge to protect, which had made him not only eager to run to his brothers' rescue but the first to offer comfort, when comfort was needed. The urge to run, which had made him so hard to hold onto when the streets of New York began to captivate his mind. The fire of a restless spirit, which had made him a deep ally and a strong enemy and a short fuse for every member of his family in turn. But the more he looked at Raphael's drawings, the more Splinter had to smile, because it was his eldest's temper that truly colored every picture—and had colored, in both light and darkness, every moment of his young life. Every moment of his life, even now.

*

"Settle down, children. It is time for your lesson." Splinter waited as three of his four sons settled themselves onto the dojo floor, the youngest present looking around for their fourth.

"Where's Donny?" Michelangelo chirped, folding into a sloppy kneel between his two older brothers. One knee bumped Raphael as he overbalanced and tried to correct, and Raphael elbowed him back, tipping him into Leonardo, who glared at them both. Splinter sighed to himself, wondering where he ever found the energy to keep up with his sons these days.

"Donatello isn't feeling well this morning," he told them, pulling three staffs out of their stand and handing them to his students. "He will not be joining us."

"Is he okay?" Leonardo wanted to know.

Splinter nodded a little, smiling at the worry that had creased his next to oldest's forehead. "I'm certain it is not serious, Leonardo," he said. "He simply needs to relax for a while."

Michelangelo snickered. "Maybe he's just looking a little green," he joked. Raphael smacked him on the back of the head.

"Knucklehead."

"Stop it," Leonardo whispered, nudging Michelangelo. Michelangelo nudged Raphael in turn, and Raphael pushed him, sending the younger turtle sprawling onto his stomach. Splinter reached up to massage his temples. Somehow, when Donatello wasn't present, there was never quite enough space between his children for them to get along.

It was an odd illness, from what little Splinter had seen of his youngest before Donatello requested permission to go back to sleep. Generally, when his little ones were sick, they became very cold—a remnant of their reptilian heritage, perhaps. Donatello had seemed to be approximately his usual temperature. And though his voice had been softer than usual, it was not scratchy in the slightest, not did he have much of a cough. Strangest of all for Donatello, he had not begged Splinter to stay by his side or even insisted on sleeping in his father's room, which was his standard appeal whenever he felt unwell. It seemed he hadn't even informed any of his brothers of his condition.

Still, Donatello had never been one to lie. And whether or not Splinter could speak to his symptoms, it was rarely worth the trouble it took to get Donatello into the dojo when he didn't feel up to training.

Splinter's youngest had not quite grown out of his whining phase yet.

But Donatello was not here, and his other three were—though he had a feeling they were all particularly antsy today—so Splinter turned back to his sons and looked them over, clasping his hands behind his back. "Today we are practicing our third bo kata on top of the bamboo," he explained, gesturing to the line of three-foot high posts standing behind him. "Who would like to go first?"

When it came to teaching the young turtles something new, Splinter did not bother to ask. He started with his eldest and moved down the line, which was the only fair way to do it and also gave Donatello more time to study the technique, time his youngest often needed. When his children were just practicing an old technique, Splinter was not so strict about order.

Which was why this usually happened: Michelangelo and Raphael each made a face at the idea of practicing forms, and Leonardo straightened in his kneel, eagerness written all over his face.

"I will, Sensei," Leonardo volunteered.

Raphael rolled his eyes and made a gagging motion in Michelangelo's direction. Splinter shot his oldest a look, but Raphael dodged eye contact and in the end Splinter could only sigh, beckoning Leonardo with a gentle hand. Leonardo bowed over his staff and came to stand before his master, and then he bowed again, waiting for a signal before he mounted the bamboo.

Left, right, spin, high block—Splinter watched his next to oldest with a slow, continuous nod. It wasn't that Leonardo performed without mistakes—Splinter soon lost count of all the tiny corrections that could have been made to foot direction, staff angle and timing. It was just that there was no real substitute for practice, when it came to katas and other precision tasks, and every extra minute Leonardo spent practicing came through at times like this. Of course, katas had always been Leonardo's best area, because he had a skill for remembering and an interest to learn that his brothers seemed to be lacking.

But what Splinter was most impressed by was how little time had passed since Leonardo had been terrified of heights, and how little attention he paid to the ground now.

"Psst. Don't look now, Raph, but I think Master Leo's about to show us all up on this one," Michelangelo whispered.

"And that's news since when?" Raphael growled back.

Splinter glanced back at them in idle exasperation—but Leonardo was almost finished, so he let it go, turning back to his second son. Leonardo's foot slipped a little on the last wheel kick, but he recovered without missing a beat, so Splinter kept the criticism behind his lips, knowing that the furrows on Leonardo's forehead meant the young turtle was well aware of his mistake. Leonardo completed the last strike with a shout, and then he flipped down to the floor, bowing to Splinter and receiving a small smile in return.

"Very good, Leonardo," his master said. Leonardo's shoulders slumped with his sigh.

"I missed the last step," he admitted.

"Oh, brag about it, why don't ya," Raphael growled, slouching out of his kneel. "Ninja suck-up."

"Ninja drop-out," Leonardo returned. Raphael glowered at him, and Michelangelo laughed, making a grab for his oldest brother.

"Don't be mad, Raph," he encouraged, dropping an arm around Raphael's shoulders before his brother shook him off. "It's not nice to be jealous just 'cause he's been kicking your tail feathers for the last six years."

"Who's kicking whose tail feathers?" Raphael demanded, swinging at his younger brother and missing as Michelangelo slid into a backward roll.

"It's just 'cause he's a goody-two-shoes," Michelangelo continued, scurrying out from under another blow. Then he gave another laugh. "You know, Raph, I've really got you to thank for my flexibility."

"And I've got you to thank for my bad mood!" Raphael returned.

"Nah, you were born with that."

This was getting out of hand. Splinter took a deep breath, steeling himself to give his sons another lecture—but Leonardo beat him to it, crossing his arms over his chest. "Knock it off, guys," he said. "We're never going to get any training done if you mess around all day."

"Ninja suck-up!" Michelangelo mimicked, making a face at Leonardo.

"You want training?" Raphael snapped, jumping to his feet with his staff in ready position. "I'll give you training. Just come a little closer."

"Ooh—those sound like fighting words, Leo!" Michelangelo crowed, clambering up as well to take up his spectator's position behind his older brothers.

Leonardo squared his shoulders, readying himself for Raphael's attack—but Splinter swung his cane in a swift arc and knocked the staffs from both of their hands, glaring down at his three surprised children with disapproving eyes.

"My sons," he admonished, not needing to fake the disbelief in his voice. "This behavior is completely unacceptable for practice time. No. This behavior is unacceptable at any time." He let the silence hang for a moment, and then gestured to the floor, settling both arms across his chest. "Let us all do a few push-ups before we continue training. Perhaps that will help us get along."

"Bull," Raphael muttered under his breath, getting into push-up position. Leonardo shot him a look but kept his mouth closed.

"How many is a few?" Michelangelo wanted to know, resting on his stomach instead of up on his arms. Splinter frowned at him.

"No doubt you will know when you get there," he said flatly. "Leonardo will count. Now."

"Ich – ni – san…" Leonardo began, counting in Japanese as they had been taught. With every number, his face became a little tighter, as though regret about his misbehavior were sinking in with each completed push-up.

Raphael still looked angry. He was also going a little faster than Leonardo, refusing to follow his brother's counting. But at least the push-ups gave him something to do with his angry energy—at times, that was the best Splinter could for with his eldest.

And Michelangelo… was counting along with Leonardo. Or at least, that was Splinter's first thought. It didn't take the old rat very long to realize that his second youngest was actually just scaring up trouble again.

"Each – day – Raph – gets – a little – bit – uglier—"

"Oh, that is it!" Raphael roared, shooting out of his push-up position and tackling Michelangelo to the floor. Leonardo leaned up to watch them, not a little disdain overtaking his expression as they tumbled across the floor. But something else had caught Splinter's attention—something far more important than his eternally squabbling sons. A slight pitter-patter that had nothing to do with the chaos of the dojo.

"Silence!" Splinter snapped, sharpening the command by slamming his cane against the floor. Michelangelo and Raphael stopped moving, startled by the sound and the vibrations running through them. Leonardo's face said he thought they had gotten their due. But all three of his children were surprised when the old rat turned and pulled a throwing star off the wall, and with a flick of his wrist sent it sailing around the room.

Leonardo gasped, and Michelangelo ducked behind Raphael. But the star was not meant for them. It whipped into the curtain that separated the dojo from the hallway beyond, and in an instant had nailed the tattered fabric to the wall.

Revealing behind it a very startled Donatello, frozen in the act of tiptoeing down the hall.

For a moment, silence conquered the family of five, broken only by Raphael and Michelangelo's labored breathing. Then Splinter released a heavy sigh and folded his arms, watching his youngest with steady, suspicious eyes.

"Donatello."

Donatello turned, his smile wide with anxiety. "Yes, Sensei?"

"Where are you going?" Splinter asked, his gaze daring his youngest to lie.

Donatello twisted his hands. "Uh… to get a glass of water?"

Splinter raised an eyebrow. "On your tiptoes?"

Donatello crumbled. His shoulders slumped and his face fell, and without protest he slid down to the floor, making no attempt to escape as his father and brothers surrounded him. Splinter looked down at the little turtle with a deep frown, tapping one foot.

He would have to rethink his assumption about Donatello and lies.

"Where are you going, Donatello?" he asked again, his voice softer but no less intense than before.

Donatello bit his lip. "I was going… up."

_Up_. Even Donatello's brothers looked a little startled to hear his destination, and Michelangelo looked like he wanted to comment, but Leonardo put a hand over his mouth and shook his head before the first word could form. Splinter's eyes narrowed in his long face, the change lending power his frown.

"You have been warned about going to the surface," he reminded the little turtle. "Many times." Donatello nodded, wrapping miserable arms around himself.

"I know," he said, his voice dropping to a whimper. "I know, but…"

"I do not want excuses, Donatello," Splinter interrupted, hoping his harsh tone would be enough to get the lesson across this time. "The surface is a dangerous place, and it is very off-limits, as I thought I had made clear to you all the last time."

Donatello's lips were trembling, but he tried to speak nonetheless, squeezing his eyes shut so he didn't have to meet his father's eyes. "I… I…"

"Oh, come on, Sensei," Raphael finally broke in, unable to stand his brother's faltering silence. The eldest turtle moved to stand in front of Donatello, his arms out in a gesture of protection. "Can't you lay off him a little? Whatever he's up to, you know he's gotta be doing it for all of us. I mean, this is Donny we're talking about—not Mikey."

"Hey! What's that supposed to—" Michelangelo protested, cut off once more by Leonardo's insistent hand. Raphael glanced at them, but in a moment his eyes returned to Splinter, openly challenging his father for the first time Splinter could remember.

"So before you punish him, can't we at least hear what he was up to?" Raphael finished, bending down to put an arm around Donatello. His youngest brother was staring at him as if he'd never expected Raphael of all people to come to his rescue—but to Splinter, it was not so strange, considering how protective Raphael always became when his brothers were in trouble.

Splinter let his hands fall to rest on his hips, and he watched the two of them in silence for a moment before casting Raphael a nod, motioning both of his sons to stand. "Very well," he conceded. "Let us hear what Donatello was going to the surface for."

Donatello wiped the threatening tears from his eyes and let Raphael help him up, clinging to his eldest brother's arm like a lifeline. "I… I need a phone cable," he said, hurrying on when the mention of technology deepened his father's frown. "See, I found that phone in the junkyard not so long ago, and… well, the other day Mikey was complaining about how we don't get pizza much anymore. And I know that's because it's dangerous for you to take us all into the pizza parlor, Master Splinter, so…"

Donatello lifted his eyes to his father's, a tiny spark of hope glowing in them at last.

"So I thought if we had a phone, you could order ahead, Sensei, and then run in and pick it up. And then maybe we could have pizza more often."

This time no hand could stop Michelangelo's outburst. "Pizza! Really, Donny? That's awesome! That's the best idea you've ever had!" The orange-banded turtle freed himself at last from Leonardo's grip and rushed over to stand by his brothers. "Can we, Sensei?" he pleaded, practically jumping up and down. "Can we get a pizza phone? And then maybe a Chinese take-out phone? And how about a movie store phone?"

"Shut up," Raphael hissed, elbowing his brother in the stomach. "You're asking for too much."

Splinter considered them without answering for a long minute, holding back the smile that Donatello's efforts for Michelangelo and Raphael's efforts for Donatello wanted to put on his face. Then at last he turned to the only turtle still standing at his elbow, considering his second son's waiting face.

"What do you think, Leonardo?" he asked, surprising the young turtle with his question. Leonardo studied his face through his moment of careful thought, desire and duty warring across his serious features. Then at last Leonardo sighed, shaking his head.

"Pizza isn't a good enough reason to break the rules, Sensei," Leonardo answered obediently, staring down at his feet. "Even though a pizza phone would have been really cool."

Splinter allowed himself a small smile, for the respect and responsibility that young Leonardo would not forsake even for pizza. Then he put a gentle hand onto his next to oldest's head, directing his words to Leonardo though in truth he spoke to all of them.

"Well, my son, that is certainly true. And so I'm afraid Donatello will have to join us for the rest of practice." Leonardo looked up at him in surprise at the light sentence, and Splinter chuckled, turning to make his way back into the dojo. "Then perhaps we will see about getting a phone cord, and going out for pizza."

"But… Master Splinter—" Leonardo began.

"All right!" Michelangelo yelled, throwing himself forward and grabbing his father around the waist. "I love you, Master Splinter! And I love pizza! And I love Donny and his pizza phone! And I love Leo and Raph, too, even though Leo tried to spoil everything and Raph's a big fat bully!"

"What's that you're calling me?" Raphael demanded, chasing Michelangelo into the dojo ahead of his family. Splinter shook his head. Then he took Donatello and Leonardo's hands and followed behind the pair, wondering what he had done in his life to deserve such trying, wonderful children.

_End Chapter 7_


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Raph's last story. Moving into Leo's section next.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

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"_All right!" Michelangelo yelled, throwing himself forward and grabbing his father around the waist. "I love you, Master Splinter! And I love pizza! And I love Donny and his pizza phone! And I love Leo and Raph, too, even though Leo tried to spoil everything and Raph's a big fat bully!"_

"_What's that you're calling me?" Raphael demanded, chasing Michelangelo into the dojo ahead of his family. Splinter shook his head. Then he took Donatello and Leonardo's hands and followed behind the pair, wondering what he had done in his life to deserve such trying, wonderful children._

.x.

That was a memory that still made Splinter smile, even as he traced the rough outlines of Raphael's pictures and remembered all the trouble that had come with his eldest's temper and unwavering stubborn streak. He remembered that later that night, after the pizza and the first experiments with owning a land line, Leonardo had asked him why Donatello hadn't been punished more severely for trying to sneak to the surface. Splinter recalled answering that he wanted to encourage Donatello's warm heart. The truth was, he wanted to encourage Raphael's as well.

With hands that the sands of time had worn smooth, Splinter leafed through the pictures, shaking his head at the fierce spirit pronounced and recorded in every crayon line. Raphael. A warrior with the power of a wildfire at his disposal, and the master of the best fighting instinct in their household. The champion of free sparring matches amongst his brothers before they had even learned their forms. A self-proclaimed vigilante against the tides of New York's underworld.

But Splinter knew, as the pictures knew, that the root of Raphael's successes as well as his failures lay in his passionate soul. His drive for action. His rebel's blood. And the devoted heart of an eldest child who tried, even in his mistakes, to reach out to his brothers—and whose brothers always ended up reaching back.

.x.

"I love Spaghetti-O's, yes I do. I love Spaghetti-O's, how 'bout you?" Standing in front of the sink, up to his elbows in bubbles, Michelangelo leaned toward Raphael with a grin, clutching a half-clean bowl in his hands. "Well, do ya, Raph? Huh? Do you love Spaghetti-O's, too?"

"I'll tell you what I don't love," Raphael growled, shoving Michelangelo away from him. "Your brainless singing. Knock it off—my ears can't take any more of that."

"Let him be, Raph," Leonardo said over his shoulder, as he helped Donatello wipe the remnants of lunch from the table. "His singing's not hurting anything."

"What did I just say about my ears?" Raphael shot back, accidentally banging the bowl he was rinsing against the side of the sink. The eldest turtle winced a little at the noise, shaking the dish lightly. "And who are you to say, anyway—you're not the one standing right next to him."

"I'm not the one who's going to break something, either," Leonardo admonished, giving the dish in his brother's hands a look. "Be careful with those."

From where he was putting the crackers back into the cupboard, Splinter paused to rest his head against the side of the cabinet, closing his eyes in a vain wish for a moment of peace. He loved his children—all of them. He would never have given them up. But that did not mitigate the fact that some days he felt their only goal was to drive him crazy.

"Please settle down, children," he said, wondering how many times a week he requested that and how many times it actually worked. "We must finish cleaning quickly and then begin training. Leonardo and Donatello, please begin drying the dishes now."

"But these glass dishes are too heavy," Donatello complained, looking up at Splinter with big reluctant eyes. Splinter put his hands on his hips, ready with a lecture for his youngest about hard work and helping out—but Leonardo jumped in before he could, taking Donatello's hand and leading the little turtle toward Raphael's stack of clean dishes.

"It's okay, Donny. You can dry the silverware—I'll get the dishes," Leonardo offered. Donatello smiled, and Splinter shook his head, recognizing not for the first time that spoiling his youngest brother came just a little too naturally to Leonardo.

For perhaps one blessed minute, there was cooperative silence from his four little ones, a silence broken only by Michelangelo splashing in the bubbles and the steady clink of drying dishes. Then Splinter finished wiping down the counter and handed to last dirty dish, the Spaghetti-O's pot, to Michelangelo at the head of the cleaning line.

"I love Spaghetti-O's," Michelangelo began again, dropping the pot into the soapy water.

Its descent ended in an unexpectedly sharp _clank_, one that made all of his brothers jump, and Michelangelo blinked as he dug through the water, searching for the cause of the noise. At last his hand re-emerged clutching a forgotten spoon, which he tapped experimentally against the rim of the pot.

"Hey, how'd this one get away? Oh well," Michelangelo said, hammering on the pot a few more times with his recovered spoon. Leonardo and Donatello turned back to continue drying the dishes, losing interest in the sound now that they knew its cause. But with every subsequent _clank_, Raphael's frown got a little sharper, until at last he pounded one fist against the counter, startling Michelangelo into an especially loud _clank_.

"Knock it the shell off, Mikey," he snapped, holding out a hand in demand for the pot. "Just wipe it off and hand it over already. I swear you live to be annoying."

Michelangelo studied his brother for a moment, looking between Raphael and the pot he seemed to want so desperately. Then his face split with a tremendous grin, and he took a step away from his brother, the pot still clutched in two devious hands.

"This sound doesn't bother you, does it, Raph?" he asked, tapping the spoon against the pot again and grinning yet wider as Raphael flinched. "It does, doesn't it? You hate that sound."

"Just give me the pot, Mikey," Raphael warned, the unspoken threat riding heavy in his words.

But Michelangelo did not give it to him. He just brought the spoon up to the pot again, tapping not once this time but all over the metal surface, sending a great variety of _clank_s at Raphael. "Or is it this sound? It makes different sounds when you hit different places. How about this one? Does that make your skin crawl?"

"Michelangelo," Splinter warned, but his hands were full of juice bottles and there was little he could do.

All the more reason for Raphael to take things into his own hands, it seemed. "Mikey, you do that one more time—" he growled.

And Michelangelo did, a resounding clank that made more turtles than Raphael flinch. Then Raphael shook his head and dove at his brother, knocking them back against the edge of the sink.

"I'm gonna ring your scrawny little neck!"

"Raphael! Michelangelo! Stop that at once," Splinter snapped, struggling to put the juice away as quickly as possible.

"I would stop, Sensei," Michelangelo chirped, vaulting over a chair, "but Raph's chasing me. I don't wanna get hit. I'll stop when he stops."

"Raphael, stop chasing your brother," Splinter repeated.

"Not until Mikey gets what he deserves!" Raphael shot back, scrambling after his fleet-footed brother.

"Knock it off, you guys," Leonardo echoed, lifting his dish out of the way as his brothers barreled through. But no one was in the mood to listen today, and Michelangelo only ran faster, his mouth moving as fast as his feet.

"Raph's on the rampage again!" Michelangelo crowed, abandoning the half-clean pot as he rolled out of Raphael's way and raced around the kitchen. "He's a modern-day T-rex: big body, small brain. Hey, Donny," he called, dodging a swipe from Raphael and looking back to his younger brother. "How do you trick T-rex again?"

"Stand still," Donatello said.

Michelangelo, like all very fast children, had the ability to stop on a dime when he chose—as he did now, coming to a dead stop in the middle of the kitchen. Raphael had been behind him, but not far—not far enough to stop, by any means, and he ran headlong into Michelangelo's halted form, sending them careening toward opposite sides of the kitchen. Michelangelo staggered to a stop against the table, but Raphael was headed for the sink, and he bowled into Donatello before he could get his feet under him.

The impact startled a few clean dishes out of Leonardo's stack, sending them crashing one after the other onto the floor. But the real trouble came a second later, when the sound of their breaking scared Donatello into stepping back and embedding a few ceramic shards in his tender foot.

"Donatello!" Splinter gasped.

"Ah—ow…" the little turtle cried, tears forming in his eyes as he stared at the broken dishes, afraid of the shards but too afraid to move away from them either.

"Donny…" Raphael breathed, surprise and regret warring for control of his expression. "I'm sorry… I—"

"Donny!" Leonardo exclaimed, stepping forward to reach his youngest brother in spite of the glass. "Are you okay?" the little turtle asked, kneeling down carefully and trying to check the injury. "How bad is it?"

"It hurts really bad," Donatello replied, his voice wavering as the tears began to roll down his cheeks. "Maybe it severed the muscles in my foot. Maybe I'll never walk again."

"No way!" Michelangelo cried, his childish eyes wide with astonishment. "It can't be, Donny. You're too young to die!"

The other turtles looked similarly mortified at Donatello's claim, and Splinter rushed for his youngest, hoping to comfort Donatello before his knowledgeable mind but child's experience caused any more trouble. "Oh, Donatello," Splinter said, reaching down to lift the crying child into his arms. "Come, it cannot be that bad. Let me have a look."

"It is that bad," Donatello insisted, burying his face in his father's shoulder. "It's the worst ever. It's never going to heal."

"Hush," Splinter soothed, sitting down at the table and turning his youngest's foot to the light. "Michelangelo, please get the bandages and the tweezers."

"On my way," Michelangelo called, racing from the room. "Don't worry, Donny—I'll be back before you even know I'm gone."

Raphael had already knelt and begun gathering the broken dish pieces into his hand, and Splinter gave his next to oldest a nod, gently feeling for glass in Donatello's foot. "Leonardo, help your brother clean up the glass."

"It was Raph's fault, Sensei," Leonardo protested, folding his arms self-righteously across his chest. "I told him to be careful, and to stop chasing Mikey. Donny didn't have anything to do with it, and neither did I."

Splinter rubbed a hand across his forehead, trying to soothe Donatello and stare his second son down at the same time. Leonardo never argued about clean-up or punishment when he felt he'd had a hand in whatever had gone wrong—unfortunately, that made him twice as stubborn when he believed he was not at fault.

"Please do as you are told, Leonardo," Splinter said, turning back to Donatello. "I do not have time to tell you again."

Leonardo's expression descended into a sulk—but he was no longer the center of Splinter's attention, because just then Michelangelo crashed back into the room with medical supplies bursting from his arms, shoving them all haphazardly onto the table.

"Here you go, Sensei," Michelangelo said, breathless from his breakneck sprint. "We've gotta fix Donny, so I brought everything I could find. Band-Aids, and cotton balls, the thermometer, and Ty-len-ol," he said, reading the name slowly off of the bottle. "And some pills, and lotion, and toothpaste… and whatever's in here…"

He gave the bottle of Ipecac syrup a shake, and Splinter reached over to take it from him, wondering how Michelangelo had gotten hold of his poison control supplies in the first place. "Thank you, my son. But I need the tweezers first of all."

"They've gotta be in here somewhere," Michelangelo said with a shrug, digging through the pile with earnest.

By the time Splinter managed to remove the glass from Donatello's foot and bandage it tightly, his elder children had gotten into an argument—or at least, their argument had become audible, which seemed more likely to Splinter.

"I told you to be careful," Leonardo hissed.

"How many times to you want me to say I'm sorry, Leo?" Raphael shot back, his voice growing harsher as he got to his feet and tossed the dish shards into the trash. "You want me to write it on a card and shove it down your throat? Because I'm getting closer to that every time you open your mouth."

"I don't want you to say sorry, Raph," Leonardo replied, keeping his own voice steady as he rose. "I want you to promise it's never going to happen again. But you can't, because next time you get mad at Mikey you're gonna do the exact same thing. You're going to forget about everybody else and someone's gonna get hurt. Because you're so… irresponsible," he finished after a moment, finding the difficult word.

"Shut up. I am not," Raphael snarled, shoving his brother back into the counter. The dishes rattled in their place beside the sink, and both turtles watched them until the sound died away—and Leonardo didn't say anything more, but his expression suggested he didn't have to, because Raphael had made his point for him.

"That is enough fighting, my sons," Splinter said firmly, tying the last of Donatello's bandages and rising to his feet. "It is time to train. Now come."

"But I can't train," Donatello whimpered, clinging to Splinter's robe. "Not with my foot. You're not gonna make me, right, Sensei?"

Splinter wanted to tell reply that there were plenty of kinds of training that could be done without the use of one's foot—but this was Donatello, after all, and the tears had only just stopped. So instead the tired old rat just settled for a sigh, moving toward the dojo with Donatello still in his arms.

"Perhaps one of your brothers would play chess with you, while the others are training."

"I'll do it," Raphael said immediately, in spite of how little interest chess usually held for him.

Donatello frowned. "No. I want Leo."

"Why him?" Raphael demanded, his eyes flickering between hurt and anger. Donatello's frown soured into a pout.

"Because you're no good at it, and you're too rough with the pieces. You always get mad and throw them, and last time you broke one. You break everything," the little turtle accused, absently fingering his bandaged foot. "And Mikey doesn't know how to play anyway."

"Who wants to play a boring game like that?" Michelangelo asked. Then he laughed, skipping ahead of his brothers into the dojo. "My bad—Leo's the perfect choice. He's pretty boring, too."

"That is quite enough," Splinter said, cutting into the conversation before Leonardo could respond or Raphael could begin arguing again. "Donatello and Leonardo, get out the chess set. Michelangelo and Raphael, we will begin with a sparring match."

"But I want to play with Donny!" Raphael objected, desperately trying to catch his youngest brother's gaze. Donatello kept his eyes on the wall.

"I want to play with Leo," he repeated.

"I am sorry, Raphael," Splinter sighed. "Perhaps you can play with Donatello this afternoon. For now, please prepare to spar with Michelangelo."

"You mean, prepare to lose to the great and powerful Michelangelo!" Splinter's next to youngest sang out, striking a heroic pose. "Prepare to meet your doom, villain!"

"Who're you callin' a villain?" Raphael snapped, leaping at his brother before Splinter even gave the signal.

For a few minutes, Raphael's frustration with the morning and Michelangelo's constant, taunting jabber were enough to focus the eldest turtle's attention on his match, driving powerful if off-target strikes at his loudest little brother. But as the fight wore on, Splinter could tell that Raphael's mind was beginning to wander—as were his eyes, which strayed to Donatello and Leonardo's quiet chess game almost as often as they watched Michelangelo. Which was why it shouldn't have surprised anyone—though Raphael certainly didn't see it coming—when Michelangelo performed a creative if sloppy leg sweep and sent his oldest brother clattering into the weapons rack, knocking wooden swords and short staffs to the concrete floor.

"Oh—was that Mikey's win? Oh yeah, totally Mikey's win," the younger turtle announced, bowing deeply to the mirror Splinter had hung on one wall of the dojo. "Thank you, thank you—and thanks to Raph, too, for proving my comic books right again. Good always wins, because evil is dumb…"

"All right," Raphael shouted, shoving himself up out of the scatter of weapons. "I've had just about enough of you, Mikey. Two insults means two poundings, and you better just plan on using a wheelchair for the next two months—"

"Raphael." The name wasn't enough, so Splinter swept forward and caught his eldest's hand, pulling Raphael to a standstill long before he could reach his brother. His eyes, usually so kind, had lost every last speck of patience, hard and black as he glared around at his sons. "You have all been very troublesome today—Raphael and Michelangelo in particular. Michelangelo, you are to stop baiting your brother. And Raphael, how many times must I tell you that you are never to hit in anger?"

At least once more, it seemed—because in spite of his firm grip, Raphael was tugging at his wrist, still angling for Michelangelo. There was nothing to do but send Leonardo and Donatello out to finish their game in the living room, and assign Raphael and Michelangelo twenty laps around the dojo in the hopes that running would make them too tired to fight. Then he moved into the laundry room and left them to it, since that room allowed him supervision of both the living room and the dojo and there was always housework to do.

What a day.

Michelangelo was a faster runner than Raphael—much faster, as the pounding of his footsteps told Splinter as the old rat sorted out a load of laundry. As such, Michelangelo finished his punishment long before his brother, and he made a beeline for the living room, the squeak of springs announcing that he had vaulted onto the couch. Then the television began to gurgle, and Splinter recognized the opening music of Michelangelo's favorite movie, an old treasure hunt his master had found in a two-dollar bargain bin not so long ago.

"Goonies! Goonies! Go, Goonies!" Michelangelo cheered, overriding the music of the opening credits. Then the sounds of the movie took over, and for perhaps five minutes, the lair was peaceful, Raphael's breathing and the soft slide of chess pieces the only break to the television soundtrack.

Five minutes was about how long it took Raphael to finish his laps.

A heavier set of footfalls shadowed the path Michelangelo had taken, hesitating in the living room doorway before Raphael's voice entered the scene. "You guys still on that same game?"

Donatello shifted in his seat—Splinter knew it was him because Leonardo answered Raphael in his place, his voice wary but not immediately hostile. "No, Donny beat me a while ago. We just decided to keep going."

"Oh." This time the shift was Raphael, less of a step forward than a self-conscious shuffle. "How's your foot, Donny?" he asked after a moment.

"It still hurts," Donatello replied, not quite as an accusation. "Check, Leo."

For a moment, the chess pieces were the only things moving again—then Raphael coughed a little, scuffing one foot against the rug. "Maybe I could get in on the next game," he muttered, half a request and half a question.

Donatello would be looking at the floor—Splinter knew his passive, non-confrontational son too well to expect an answer from him directly. Which left Leonardo to speak again, a common pattern in arguments surrounding Donatello.

"Raph, maybe you could lay off for today—"

"Fine, forget it!" Raphael snapped, storming into the living room and past the chess board with pounding steps. "Who wants to play chess anyway?" Then the eldest turtle came to a halt at the edge of the couch, accompanied by a bang that might have been him kicking the arm rest. "Hey, shell for brains. It's my afternoon to watch TV. Take your stupid movie and get outta my way."

"No way," Michelangelo replied, no doubt scrambling to lay claim to the remote. "I got here first, and I already started my movie. I'm not stopping it now."

"But it's my turn," Raphael protested, his voice rising with his temper.

"Yeah?" Michelangelo asked. "Well maybe you should have run a little faster, huh? The early ninja gets the television."

In the next room over, Splinter felt his headache starting to throb again, whatever peace the laundry had brought him fading as his children found something else to argue about. His first instinct was to step into the other room and stop them, as he usually did—and in fact, he took two steps toward the door before he caught himself listening to their argument over the movie's soundtrack. His sons were getting older, though no less troublesome, and he would not always be there to pull them apart. Perhaps there were some fights—even quickly escalating ones like this—that he had to let them sort out themselves.

With a sigh, Splinter turned back to the laundry, determined not to intervene. But it was more than a little of his attention that stayed on the next room, listening to the rising voices.

"That's not fair!" Raphael was yelling. Michelangelo just laughed.

"Okay—well then how about this? Whoever won the sparring match today can watch what they want. That'd be fairer, right?"

There was a crash now—Raphael lunging or Michelangelo jumping out of the way—as the eldest turtle's voice hit a full shout. "Give me that remote, Mikey!"

Michelangelo clicked his tongue, apparently still out of harm's way. "Geez, Raph—you gotta learn to control that temper. That's the reason Donny's so afraid of you, you know."

Any other day, it would just have been another taunt. Today, it was the last thing Raphael wanted to hear. And it was the last straw, too, if the following bang was any indication.

"I hate this!" Raphael bellowed, and Splinter recognized the sound of his thin rocking chair being overturned. "I am sick of you, Mikey—I'm sick of all of you! And I'm especially sick of Goonies!"

Then there was a sudden, metallic shriek, and abruptly the movie sounds stopped, a gasp from Donatello taking their place. Splinter cocked a worried ear toward the living room, a heavy feeling of foreboding slipping into his stomach. Then there was a wail—not of tears, but definitely of shock—and Splinter put his head down against the washing machine, able to guess now what had happened in the other room.

"My Goonies!" Michelangelo cried, undoubtedly tearing the tape out of Raphael's hands. "Not my Goonies! Raph, you big bully—how could you do that to the Goonies?"

"Oh, no, Raph." This voice was Donatello's, muted as though his hands had come up to cover his mouth. "You can't yank tapes out of the VCR that way. The deck's all messed up now—see how it's hanging out? And look at all that ribbon…"

Another wince for Splinter. Another wail from Michelangelo.

"You mean you can't fix it, Donny? You can't put the ribbon back?"

"It doesn't work that way," Donatello told him, in his softer, science voice. "See, the ribbon's actually magnetic tape, and when it gets pulled out…"

"No! It's not true!" Michelangelo's voice was getting higher with his panic. "Goonies was my favorite movie in the whole wide world—it can't be gone forever!"

"Mikey…" Raphael started.

"This is exactly what I was talking about," Leonardo interrupted, his voice sharp with righteous anger. "You lose your temper and you do things like this. Every single time, that's how it happens. When are you gonna learn to control yourself?"

"You're not Master Splinter!" Raphael shouted, his penitence switching to anger to match Leonardo's pitch for pitch. "I don't have to take that from you, Leo."

"No, you don't have to," Leonardo said, refusing to shout. "And the next time this happens, you can break Mikey's second favorite movie, and Sensei's VCR again, and the get Donny hurt, too. All because you can't hold your temper."

"Why don't you just say what you're thinking, Leo?" Raphael shot back, his voice growing louder as he turned to face his brother. "Why don't you just say I'm a screw-up who can't do anything right. That's what you think, isn't it? So just spit it out already! Or are you too chicken?"

There was a moment of silence as Raphael's question hung in the air—then one pair of little footsteps moved toward the hallway, accompanied by a quiet, determined voice. "I'm going to find Master Splinter," Leonardo announced. "We have to tell him what happened."

"Yeah, you do that!" Raphael yelled, his voice turning away from his next younger brother. "Go running to Sensei, you tattletale. I'm gonna be right here when you get back—and maybe someday you'll start fighting your own battles, instead of running away."

Splinter knew that had to rankle Leonardo, his rivalry with Raphael far too potent for a comment like that to pass without stinging—but the younger turtle said nothing, only starting down the corridor in the direction of his father's room. His exit settled silence like a shroud across the living room; then there was a _slump_, and a sigh, and Raphael sat back into the couch, all of his anger leaving with Leonardo.

"Leo's right," the little turtle mumbled to himself, pounding a fist against the arm rest. "I am a screw-up."

"Did you have to take it out on the Goonies?" Michelangelo wanted to know.

"Shh, Mikey," Donatello hissed, a scuff announcing his exit from the chair and movement to stand before Raphael. Then the youngest turtle cleared his throat, his voice waffling in volume as he looked from Raphael to the VCR. "You know, Raph, this isn't really broken that badly. With a little work, maybe we could—"

"Aw, give it a rest, Donny," Raphael said, just enough of his temper returning to put an edge into his voice. "I screwed up and it's broken. Just let it die, all right?"

Donatello did, not speaking again as his tiny footfalls left the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and Splinter turned to see Leonardo standing in the doorway, looking as serious as his young face allowed.

"Sensei, please come quick," Leonardo requested, taking a step back toward the living room. "Raph got angry and broke the VCR, and Mikey's movie, too."

With a sigh for the day and the situation and his children and his incurable headache, Splinter followed Leonardo into the living room, where, just as he'd suspected, Raphael was staring shame-faced at the ground and Michelangelo was clutching his Goonies tape to his chest. Donatello did not seem to have returned. Leonardo stepped aside to let his father pass, waiting like a jailer at the edge of the couch, and Splinter dropped his hands to his waist, looking with some sympathy on his eldest, uncontrollable son.

"What is this I hear about a VCR?" he asked, trying to keep his voice gentle but stern.

Raphael was wringing his hands, his expression a mask of disgrace and regret. "Look, Sensei… I didn't mean to do nothin', but… but I got angry at Mikey, and I broke—"

"Nothing!"

Splinter and his three children looked back to the hallway as Donatello came running from the direction of his room, clutching the VCR in triumphant little arms. The youngest turtle skidded to a stop at Michelangelo's side, apparently recovered from the pain in his foot.

"What Raph meant to say is, he _thought_ he broke the VCR, 'cause he hit the eject button and the tape popped out. But I just checked it out, and it's completely fine. Just a misunderstanding," Donatello finished, sending a smile in Raphael's direction.

Raphael's mouth was hanging open, as though Donatello trying to pull him out of trouble was a thought so impossible it hadn't even crossed his mind. Leonardo and Michelangelo looked surprised as well. Splinter, for his part, could see the screwdriver scratches at the edge of the deck and the pieces of tape holding the video flap closed—but he let that go, willing to honor Donatello's effort above the truth just this once.

"So that's how it is, Sensei," Donatello added, placing the VCR gently on the coffee table. "No harm done at all. Right, guys?"

"Wait a minute!" Michelangelo protested. "What about my Goonies—"

Donatello had been spending too much time with Raphael—there was no other explanation for the youngest, least violent turtle of all stomping down hard on Michelangelo's foot, stopping his brother mid-complaint. Carefully holding back his smile, Splinter raised an eyebrow, turning his attention to Michelangelo.

"What is wrong with your Goonies tape, my son?"

Michelangelo looked up at his father for a second, then back at Donatello. Then a great toothy grin came over his face, a grin Splinter had come to recognize as sure proof of a lie from any of his children.

"Uh… nothing, Sensei. Except that it's boring as shell—I'm sick of this movie!" Michelangelo declared, throwing the tape a little too excitedly away from him so that it bounced down the hallway.

For the sake of his youngest children, Splinter pretended not to see the ribbon pooling out onto the floor, unmistakable proof of its actual fate. Instead he turned back to Leonardo, still keeping his smile carefully in check.

"Well, Leonardo. I do not know what you thought Raphael had done, but everything seems to be fine here. I will return to doing the laundry."

"But—" Leonardo started.

"Come on, Leo," Donatello cut in, running forward to tug on his brother's arm. "Since there's nothing wrong with the VCR, let's watch a movie. Okay?"

"Not Goonies," Michelangelo added, a little too quickly. "Any other movie, though. Like the Three Ninjas. That's a good movie."

Leonardo looked between his younger brothers for a moment, a frown still firmly entrenched in his face—but it was on Raphael that his gaze finally settled, and they shared a look for a moment, a look Splinter could only classify as mutual defeat. Then Leonardo let himself be pulled over to the couch, surrendering to Michelangelo and Donatello's voices, and Splinter returned to the quiet of his laundry room, smiling as he folded their surface clothes.

Some other time, he would have to remind his children about lying, even to help one another. Some other time, when he wasn't quite as pleased with their rallying love for each other.

It couldn't have been a minute before there was a scuffing sound behind him, and Splinter turned around to see Raphael waiting just outside the doorway, his eyes clouded with the weight of a guilty conscience. Splinter caught his eldest's gaze and waited.

"I did break the VCR, Sensei," Raphael blurted out, barely able to hold his silence for so much as a second. "And Mikey's tape, too. Leo wasn't lying. Donny just fixed it before you came."

Splinter leaned back against the washing machine, watching his son with proud, patient eyes. "What do you think we should do about that, Raphael?" he asked.

"I think I want to get Mikey a new tape," the little turtle replied, looking more miserable than ever.

At last Splinter's smile slipped across his face, and he moved to stand before Raphael, pressing the little turtle into a gentle hug. "I think that will not be hard to do," he assured his son, and Raphael relaxed against him, relieved that his mistake could be corrected.

"Thanks, Sensei," he mumbled, returning his father's hug.

"Do not thank me," Splinter said. "Thank Donatello. Now. And then perhaps you would join your brothers for a movie, and allow me to finish the laundry."

With only a lingering backward look, Raphael ran from the room, and beyond the walls Splinter could hear his gruff little voice thanking Donatello for his favor. And in spite of his long day and his waiting chores and the headache that would be back tomorrow, Splinter stopped for a moment to smile at their voices, a constant reminder of the four beautiful souls that he had been so fortunate to find.

_End Chapter 8_


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Moving into Leo's section. Two down, two to go.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Thanks, Sensei," he mumbled, returning his father's hug._

"_Do not thank me," Splinter said. "Thank Donatello. Now. And then perhaps you would join your brothers for a movie, and allow me to finish the laundry."_

_With only a lingering backward look, Raphael ran from the room, and beyond the walls Splinter could hear his gruff little voice thanking Donatello for his favor. And in spite of his long day and his waiting chores and the headache that would be back tomorrow, Splinter stopped for a moment to smile at their voices, a constant reminder of the four beautiful souls that he had been so fortunate to find._

.x.

Fortunate to find, and more fortunate to keep, through the weave of all these years. With a sigh that lifted the corners of his lips, Splinter gave the patchwork of childish creativity blanketing his broken floor one more glance, searching for another picture with the same soul as the stack in his hands. But Raphael's pictures were collected at last, and the memories of his eldest son had to retreat with them, taking their place in the pile of papers the old rat held softly to his robe.

There was so much to remember that in a way Splinter wished Raphael's pictures would never end, as he had wished of Donatello's, as well. But the cacophony of voices turning to echoes in the next room reminded him of the burden they carried this night, and the imperative of progress—so he pushed his last thoughts of Raphael's turbulent, tender soul out of his mind, bending tired knees in pursuit of another memory.

There were only two types of pictures left—and although Splinter's hand originally stretched toward the brightest of them, alive with colors and childish creativity, he hesitated halfway there, reaching for a sheet of paper that seemed, at his first passing glance, completely blank. Once he had lifted it from the scattered sheaf and laid it on top of Raphael's, he could see that there was a little color, at least, pressed into the paper. But the lines were so halting and the shading so light that had his eye not been tuned to collecting the scraps of childhood he had stored so long in this unbound book, he might have missed the drawing altogether.

Even if he had not collected Raphael and Donatello's artwork already, it would have been easy to guess whose picture this was. Each of the coloring book pages, scattered like flakes of snow across the colorful tapestry still awaiting him, had been colored with such a precise attention to the pre-drawn lines that a halo of white separated the faint patches of color from the borders of the superheroes and their supporting figures. The colors themselves were unremarkable; as realistic as could be accomplished with a box of children's crayons, with attention paid even to the shadows beneath the heroes' feet.

For all that, there was something a little unnerving about the drawings—none of which, to Splinter's eyes, had been finished. Their young artist, it seemed, had abandoned the pictures as soon as perfection slipped out of his reach: the crayon slipping across an intended line, a color that the crayon box did not accommodate, a passing flaw in the artistic execution. Things that would not have bothered Splinter's other children—that they wouldn't have noticed, he imagined. But then, his next to oldest son had always been unusually exacting of himself.

Nor had the tendency to give up on things that were outside of his ability for perfect execution been restricted to activities such as drawing. It had been his largest flaw as an aspiring ninja, though certainly not his only one. And Splinter had noticed that imperfection was not the only thing that drove Leonardo—young Leonardo the same as older Leonardo—in the direction of giving up. Being surpassed seemed to do so even faster.

.x.

"Good, Donatello. Aim higher on the target. Michelangelo, focus your attack on a single point."

"But there are so many good points to hit, Sensei," Michelangelo, always one to exercise his tongue along with the rest of him, told his father as the old rat reached down to correct his shoulders. Michelangelo grinned up at Splinter, not watching in the slightest as his foot missed the neck to glance harmlessly off of the dummy's shoulder. "I mean, think of all the ways I could hit this guy. It's boring to just pick one."

"The purpose of this exercise, my son," Splinter said as he tugged Michelangelo's knee back into the proper position, "is to pick one, and to hit it repeatedly using good form and maintaining your balance. If you do not, you are defeating the purpose of this exercise."

"That's too bad. Maybe I should just sit this one out, then? I'll watch Donny from the couch, with the TV on." Splinter gave his next to youngest a look, and Michelangelo shrugged, though he didn't seem particularly bothered by the silent admonishment. "What? The Justice Force is on. Do you know how much more I could learn about being a ninja from watching them?"

From the other side of the room, halfway through a sparring match with Raphael, Leonardo called, "There aren't any ninja on the Justice Force."

"Leo, don't you know anything? The most important part of being a ninja isn't technique or skill or sneaking around," Michelangelo called back, against missing the neck and plunging his foot—quite effectively, actually—into the dummy's stomach. "The most important part of being a ninja is being totally awesome—and I know I'm pretty cool as it is, but if I could catch a few lessons from the Justice Force, I'd be a black-belt ninja already."

"There's no such thing as black-belt ninjas," Raphael yelled, ducking a wheel kick to the nose.

"Don't be stupid, Raph," Michelangelo replied. "You ever seen a ninja? Those guys don't wear anything but black belts. And black shirts, and black pants, and dorky-looking black masks… see, the Justice Force is already ten times better ninjas than all the ninjas I've ever seen, just 'cause they don't wear those masks. Totally uncool."

"Michelangelo," Splinter cut in, holding his son's shoulders still before another off-target kick could scatter toward the dummy. Michelangelo looked up at him. "As a favor to me, try to contain your stutter-step front snap kick to a single target, please."

"Well, I'll do what I can, Sensei," Michelangelo said, giving a sloppy salute as he waved his toes at the target. "But it's not like I know where my foot's going before it leaves the ground."

"That would be the purpose of control," Splinter muttered to himself as he moved back to Donatello, pushing his youngest into a deeper back stance. "Donatello, please continue."

"Sorry, Sensei," Donatello said, not looking particularly sorry at all. "Mikey was distracting me."

"Michelangelo was distracting us all," Splinter allowed, brushing his youngest's head. "All the same, there will be many distractions on a battlefield. You must learn to concentrate on your opponent while still being aware of your surroundings."

Donatello looked a little put out at this return to his complaint, but he turned back to the dummy without commenting, returning to the kicking exercise that was losing a little of its snap as he progressed. Splinter shook his head but didn't chastise him, as he knew Donatello's energy simply did not allow perfect performance for very long. Instead he turned his eyes to the light sparring match—light because his two older children had been given a strict warning about the punishment for taking things too seriously—in progress on the opposite side of the room.

"Raphael, you are being too repetitive," Splinter called, his voice distracting Raphael a little from his reverse punch. "Try a different attack combination than block, slide, punch."

"I am trying," Raphael growled, but he slipped to the side and came in with a hammer fist, obliging his father even though Leonardo's upper block was already there. Leonardo ducked and tried to sweep Raphael's legs out from under him, a move that was well-executed but simply lacked the force to do more than shake his brother's balance.

"Timing, Leonardo," Splinter said, pausing to straighten Michelangelo's shoulders again. "Body and feet stop at the same time."

"Yes, Sensei," Leonardo acknowledged, his face tightening as he focused on the instructions. Splinter let them go on for another five minutes, without notable gain or loss on either side, until he could tell Raphael was growing frustrated—then called a halt to all of his children's activities, gesturing them in toward Michelangelo's dummy.

"My sons, you are all doing very well," he told them, which added a little glow to the faces of all except Michelangelo, whose face had been glowing already. "Well enough that I believe we can learn a new skill today. I will warn you that it is challenging, however. It may take a week or two for you to master, and it may be frustrating at the beginning. If you would like, we can wait another few months to introduce it. I leave the decision to you."

"There's just some trick to it, right?" Raphael said, taking the lead as he often did when there was something new to be learned. "It's not going to take me two weeks."

"Anything's gotta be better than socking Mr. Dummy in the jugular over and over," Michelangelo added, swinging his leg out and doing just that for the first time in his entire practice set. "He's going to have a wicked sore neck tomorrow."

"I guess we could try…" Donatello hesitated, twisting his hands together as though uncertain what agreement was going to cost him. "But I'm sort of tired, Sensei. I might not be able to."

"It's okay, Donny. Just trying is good, right?" Leonardo assured him, putting a hand on his youngest brother's shoulder. But Splinter was not a fool, and he knew that trying was not good enough for Leonardo himself—the sharp focus that had come into his son's eyes was proof enough of that.

"As I told you, it is difficult," Splinter said, looking around again to make sure all of his children had heard him.

"We understand, Sensei," Leonardo replied, nodding at his father. "We won't expect to get it perfectly. We want to try, though."

Splinter stared down into Leonardo's face, reading in that statement, for all his attempts at humility, the confidence of a child who was used to getting things easily even when his brothers did not. But as the vote appeared to be unanimous, he said nothing on the subject and only turned to consider the dummy.

"This is a simple technique but it is difficult to execute properly. In an actual fight, timing would be crucial. In this case, I will do what I can to demonstrate the importance of timing, but I am afraid that may not be much." Splinter slipped into a forward stance, a movement so natural for him that he barely felt it, and faced the dummy squarely, his hands raised in a sparring position. "The purpose of this kick is to knock your opponent off his balance, and possibly to bring him to the ground. It is a one-leg sweep, in a way, that involves a wheel kick as well."

"Enough of that. Just show us already," Raphael muttered, earning a nudge from Leonardo.

"Pay attention, Raph. He said it was hard," Leonardo whispered. Raphael shook himself.

"A sweep? That can't be nothing. I'm going to get it first time."

"The first move," Splinter said, raising his voice a little to engage his children's attention once again, "begins with a kick to shin level. You see…" As slowly as momentum allowed, he executed the kick, holding his foot suspended in perfect balance at the close of the move. "Then turn your knee in and pull your foot back toward you. In this you have trapped their leg and disrupted their stance, and you may pull them down if they cannot recover their footing."

"Cool!" Michelangelo piped up.

"That looks like it would hurt," Donatello said, his voice entertaining the note of uncertainty that always arose in him when the consequences of a new move had not yet been explained to him. Splinter turned to look at his most peaceable son, smiling a little to disrupt the creases on Donatello's brow.

"Your opponent will lose their balance, but they are unlikely to be seriously injured. This is an excellent move to use if you would like to run away, or disable your opponent for a short time for some other reason."

"Who's running? I could take that dummy any day," Raphael bragged, his chest pushed out with the confidence fighting and all its adjuncts tended to give him. Splinter shook his head.

"Very well. As you seem to be the most eager, you may go first, Raphael. Please stand here."

"All right! Go, Raphi! Show that dummy right from left," Michelangelo cheered, pantomiming a few punches into the air. Raphael grinned at him and stepped into front stance, though he stopped grinning when Splinter pointed out that his front stance was backwards, which made Raphael scowl but Michelangelo laugh.

"Oh wait, I forgot—Raph doesn't know his right from his left!" Michelangelo teased. Which would have gotten him chased down, probably, had Splinter not slipped a restraining hand onto Raphael's shoulder and turned him back toward the target.

"Concentrate, my son. Your right foot to the target's shin, and then draw back into a front stance. Do not sacrifice your balance."

"Do not sacrifice your basic knowledge of directions, either!" Michelangelo added, though Donatello threw a hand over his mouth before he could continue.

"I'll show you basic directions," Raphael grumbled, lashing out at the dummy with the annoyance Michelangelo's teasing always brought to his brow. And to Splinter's surprise, as well as that of his other children, Raphael kicked the dummy directly behind the shin and then snapped the limb upward as he drew his foot back, the whole combination executed with enough speed and strength that the target was left swinging.

Raphael blinked at his own effort, and then up at his father. "How's that?"

"That was very good, my son," Splinter said, smiling at the pride that had flushed Raphael's face. "Be certain to return to front stance after you complete the kick. Again."

Raphael did as he was asked, and again the dummy swung in a straight line backward and forward, its leg jumping ahead of it with the force of Raphael's momentum. Splinter let him do the move five times more, and each time he put a little more power into it, so that by the end of his turn the dummy had to be stopped from swinging before the young turtle could try again. Splinter nodded to his eldest son and Raphael turned around to face his brothers, his chest puffed out a little with the flourish of victory.

"Piece of cake," he said, getting a high-five from Michelangelo.

"That was so cool, Raph! You could kick the shins out from under all kinds of people."

"You did really well, Raph," Donatello added, smiling at his eldest brother. "I wish I could do as well as you."

"Ah, this is nothing," Raphael told him, giving his youngest brother a soft fist to the arm. "You'll get it in no time, Don."

"Yeah—maybe even faster than Raph," Michelangelo adjoined. "Especially 'cause you know your right from your left."

"Hey, you—"

Leonardo didn't say anything—not to Raphael, and not during the brief chase scene that ensued, Raphael and Michelangelo dodging through the dummies as Michelangelo called out "I'm going right" or "I'm going left" and laughed at Raphael's difficulty at guessing which direction he would run. Splinter watched them, out of the corner of his eye, but mostly he watched Leonardo, who was staring at the dummy as though sizing up a challenge that was greater than he'd thought it would be.

And it was, in a way—Splinter knew that Leonardo pressured himself to do well no matter what exercise they were working on. But his second son was always more tense about it when someone else had already done well and he felt the need to do better. Especially when it was Raphael.

Splinter let them run for another minute, and then he called his children back, positioning Leonardo in front of the dummy. Leonardo stepped into a front stance with a frown still on his face, every ounce of his attention focused on the target.

"Hey, look, Raph. He's already doing better than you," Michelangelo quipped, nudging his brother with one elbow. "He put the right foot forward."

"That's the left foot, you idiot," Raphael said. Michelangelo grinned.

"Yeah, the left foot. The left foot is the right foot. You put the right foot forward, and that's the wrong foot."

"Children," Splinter interrupted, giving both of them a stern look. "Your brother is trying to practice. Please be still and allow him to focus."

Michelangelo and Raphael withdrew their elbows from each other's sides, though Raphael didn't look sorry in the least and grunted under his breath. "What's suck-up Leo need to focus for? Gonna show us all up anyway."

"Aw, don't cry, Raph," Michelangelo returned, patting his brother's arm.

"Get your hands offa me."

"My sons." Splinter waited a moment and then nodded to Leonardo. "You may begin, Leonardo."

Leonardo nodded back, sizing up the dummy one more time with his eyes. Then he lashed out with a wheel kick and pulled his foot back. But there was something wrong with the technique, and Splinter could see it immediately, not only in the movement of his second son but in the movement of the dummy, which swooped in a slow circle instead of the forward-and-back motion Splinter had expected.

Leonardo looked at the target and looked at his father, and Splinter frowned, though he didn't mean to. "Hm. Not quite, my son. Put more power into the initial kick, and turn your body to bring the leg back with you."

"Maybe Leo's still thinking about his right and his left," Michelangelo suggested, nudging Raphael with his elbow. Raphael nudged back noticeably harder.

"Maybe my right and my left are gonna pound your skull in, 'f you don't shut up."

Leonardo ignored his brothers, focusing on his master's instructions as he tried again; but again the dummy spun in a circle, barely reacting to the blow at all. Splinter's eyes narrowed. "You must roll your hip over when you kick, Leonardo. That is where the power comes from. Please do it again."

Leonardo did. He tried not once more but seven times, but in spite of his father's constant advice and the power of his own mounting frustration the dummy still turned in a circle, now harder and now faster, rather than the straight line it was intended to follow. At first his misses drew comments from his brothers, comments which slowed to Michelangelo's occasional groan as the exercise dragged on—until at last the three stopped talking altogether, watching Leonardo's sharpening expression in unusual silence. Silence that did not seem to be helping Leonardo's progress.

Splinter let him try until he began to lose his balance, distracted by his anxiety and by the force of anger that was now powering his kick—and then the old rat stopped him, setting time's soft hand onto his stiff shoulder.

"That is enough for now, Leonardo. Please take a break."

"Let me try one more time," Leonardo said, turning desperate little eyes up toward his father's face. Splinter shook his head.

"Your brothers have been waiting for a long time. We will work on this again tomorrow." And Splinter knew, after all, that good technique never came from frustration, and that Leonardo's kick would only deteriorate with his patience. But Leonardo did not know that, or did not want to know it, and he was still frowning as he turned back toward his brothers—frowning with his eyes cast down, as though by looking at the floor he could ignore the unnatural quiet that had captured the three little turtles.

Michelangelo was never silent for long.

"Well, that's a tough move, right, Leo? Prob'ly way too hard for us to learn," Michelangelo remarked, with a consideration that seemed almost more stinging, from mouthy Michelangelo, than laughter would have. The little turtle slung his arms back behind his head. "Except Raph, I mean. But he's a freak."

Splinter did not miss the way Leonardo's face darkened with his brother's words. He wondered if anyone did.

*

It was past midnight when Splinter was awakened by a noise he recognized well—the sound of the chain that held the dummies up scraping against the ceiling beam, a tiny metallic whisper that he would have missed had time not accustomed him so well to the telltale echo of late-night training. Splinter sat up from his bed and shuffled out of the nest of blankets, listening to the tiny sound with his head cocked to one side. Only two of his children ever chose training in the dead of night as an outlet for their troubles…

The beats were far too regular for Raphael.

With feet as silent as the shadows that covered them, Splinter slipped out of his room and down the hallway, making his way through the chaos of the living room to pause in the doorway of the dojo. There was only a flickering light within, which meant Leonardo was working by candlelight—but that was not so surprising, because Leonardo often did, when he was working alone. Splinter wondered if the softer light made him feel more relaxed, or if it was just a gesture of secrecy, though the light from the dojo would likely not have reached his room down the hall in any case.

Splinter's eyes needed only a moment to adapt to the dark, and as they did he could see Leonardo positioned at one of the dummies, his young face tight with focus and something else as he pushed kick after kick into the target's soft stomach. He was not practicing the kick they had learned that afternoon, however—which did not exactly surprise Splinter, knowing his second son as he did. He was surprised to see the young turtle working on his back thrust kicks, however, when those had been all but mastered a long time before.

Splinter let him be until Leonardo paused, hearing at last his father's breath or the soft flick of his tail against the ground. He didn't turn around, but Splinter knew he had been noticed by the way his son stilled, his hands falling back to his side as though he were waiting for something. Waiting for an admonishment, in all likelihood; there were rules about staying awake after bedtime. But Splinter had something else he wanted to say, something that he saved until soft feet had taken him across the room to pause at Leonardo's side.

"Your thrust kicks are very strong, my son."

Leonardo tilted his head down; if it were Donatello, Splinter would have guessed he was fighting tears, but he did not know what expression Leonardo was keeping from him. He did not try to catch it. Instead he only reached out to steady the dummy, the worn fabric cool and soft under his claws.

"They do not need more practice."

"Everything needs practice," Leonardo replied, his tone blunt at the end as though he had bitten the words from his tongue. "There is no such thing as perfection in action. We can always improve techniques, even if we think we've got them down."

Splinter smiled at the repetition of the caution he had given his children—mainly Raphael—many times before, and he wanted to put a hand on Leonardo's back but refrained, because Leonardo looked as though he did not want it. The old rat studied the dummy with patient eyes.

"That is true, my son. But I did not say your thrust kick was perfect. I only said it does not need more practice." Leonardo did not answer, and Splinter drew his hand back from the target, though his eyes stayed where they were. "You are not working on your one-leg sweep."

It was more of a statement than a question, one that drew Leonardo's eyes farther from his master as he faced the far wall, keeping his expression in shadow. "I can't do it," he said, another sharp, shallow phrase dropping like a stone from his mouth. Splinter shook his head.

"You cannot do it yet."

"No, I can't do it, Sensei." Leonardo took a deep breath, pulling his voice back from the raw anger it had slipped into. The little turtle clenched his hands. "I just can't."

Splinter looked up at the chain that held the dummy to the ceiling, the warning bell that brought him out of sleep whenever one of his children needed soft words and a firm, guiding hand. "I warned you that it is a difficult move, Leonardo."

"Yeah, but Raph—" Leonardo cut himself off, though not soon enough, and the words he had said and the words he meant to say echoed in equal measure against the silent walls, turning Splinter's lips up just a little at the corners.

"Michelangelo and Donatello could not do it either, my son," he said, again restraining the hand that wanted to reach out and pat Leonardo's shell. "Michelangelo could not keep his balance and fell three times into the dummy before his turn was over. Donatello could not perform the sweep at all."

"But that doesn't matter," Leonardo snapped, although as soon as he'd said it Splinter knew he wished he had not. The old rat raised an eyebrow.

"It does not matter that Donatello and Michelangelo could not do this technique; it only matters that you could not?" he asked, and without seeing his face the old rat knew Leonardo had pressed his lips together, fighting to keep his angry words to himself. Splinter folded his arms across his robe. "It does matter, however, that Raphael could. If Raphael could not, would you still be this upset, my son?"

"Yes," Leonardo said, but Splinter shook his head, stepping around in a circle at last so he could catch Leonardo's elusive eyes.

"You would not. If Raphael could not do this technique as well, you would still be awake, Leonardo, but you would be practicing the leg sweep. You would not be practicing a technique that you learned many months ago—a technique at which you are still better than your brothers."

"That's not—"

"You are upset that you could not perform as well as your brother today. I understand that. What I do not understand is refusing to practice. If you do not practice, how will you ever perform this move?"

"It doesn't matter, okay?" Leonardo said, and he tried to turn away again until Splinter caught his shoulders, holding his son in place. Leonardo kept his eyes on the ground, a posture that did not match his angry voice. "It doesn't matter because I can't do it. I can't. Just teach it to Raph—he got it already. And Mikey'll get it in no time. It doesn't matter."

Splinter waited in silence as the words faded away, watching his son's bent head and the little hands that had made such tight fists at his side. There were a lot of things pulling Leonardo's shoulders so tight, he knew, a lot of things keeping his eyes on the floor. Wounded pride, for one—Leonardo was used to succeeding, above and in front of his brothers, and the afternoon would have been, to his eyes, very public humiliation. His perfectionism, for another—Splinter was no stranger to his second son's desire to be the best at all things, all the time, and to do them without flaw on his first try.

But he wondered if the largest one might not have been anger, and a little sadness as well—because Splinter knew that Leonardo had always taken failure harder than his brothers, and that any perceived weakness or mistake came with shame, a greater weight of shame than his mistakes usually deserved.

Splinter watched Leonardo for a moment more, and then he turned around to face the far wall, leaving his back to the silent turtle and speaking to the shadows. "You are very talented, my son. You are growing into a fine ninja, and even though you are still young, there are accomplishments you have made that I did not expect for a long time—a very long time."

Splinter wondered if Leonardo's eyes had risen to watch his back; he did not turn around to check. He kept his eyes on the glow of the candle, a tiny flare of light in the darkness Leonardo had let in so close to him.

"There is only one respect in which I fear for your progress as a ninja, and it is this—your desire to abandon any endeavor which you cannot master at once." There was a whisper behind him, as though Leonardo had pulled in a breath; Splinter waited a moment and then pressed on. "There is no one to whom all things come easy, my son. I will not tell you that skill does not matter, because that would not be true—but I will say that often perseverance is more important than skill. Very little that is worth accomplishing comes to us easily."

"Raph got it easily," Leonardo replied, in the tone that always came to him when something made sense but he did not want to accept it, when the hurt was not gone and logic was having trouble wrestling it from his mind. Splinter shook his head.

"This time, yes. This move is suited to Raphael, because he is strong and does not hesitate when he moves. But there have been many times, Leonardo, when you have had a natural affinity for a technique and your brothers have not. As was the case with that kick you were just practicing." Splinter turned his head a little, just enough to catch Leonardo in his peripheral vision. "Are you telling me that you should always be the most skilled at everything? That Raphael, and Michelangelo and Donatello as well, should never have the chance to stand out as ninja?"

"I didn't mean… I just…" Leonardo stopped, as he often did when he did not know what he wanted to say—or, in this case, even how he felt, Splinter guessed.

"You want to succeed at things. I understand that, Leonardo. That is not a flaw, by itself. It has made you very dedicated to your training, and to all other things that you do." At last Splinter turned around to face him, and to his relief Leonardo did not turn away, watching his father with eyes the shadows were masking too well for Splinter to read them. "The flaw is in giving up. Sometimes the most difficult thing, my son, is to persevere when something is not easy for us, or especially when we may never be as good at something as others are. But I did not think you were one to give up simply because something was difficult."

"I'm not," Leonardo replied, his face tightening as anger seeped back into his expression. "I don't."

"You try," Splinter returned, keeping back the smile that Leonardo's widened eyes wanted to pull onto his face. "You are trying now."

Leonardo opened his mouth and then closed it, and opened and closed it again, and Splinter let him be for a moment before he got down on his knees, looking Leonardo straight in the eyes.

"We will work on the sweep again tomorrow, Leonardo. We will work for many days, as many days as it takes, until you and Michelangelo and Donatello can do this also. Through that work, you will learn that you can do it. But you will learn nothing if you refuse to try. If you give up when things are difficult."

Leonardo didn't answer him. His eyes had fallen back to the floor—but Splinter could see that his shoulders were pulled back, and the sharp line of his tightened jaw told his master that the lesson had done what it was meant to do: to make Leonardo simultaneously indignant and determined enough to try again when pride encouraged him to retreat.

Splinter smiled a little. Part of him wished that it would help Leonardo to remind him how well he usually did with his exercises, how fast a learner he was, and how many times he had proved to his father that he would always bring patience, dedication and focus to his lessons. But since it would not, Splinter said these things to himself in the privacy of his mind and then stood up, his hand at last coming to rest on Leonardo's arm.

"There is one more thing you might do tomorrow, my son. You might congratulate Raphael on how well he did today." Splinter tipped his head, holding the young turtle's eyes as gently as he could. "This move truly is very difficult. Michelangelo and Donatello praised his performance this afternoon; I am certain he would appreciate a word from you as well. You are also his younger brother, after all—and his rival."

Leonardo looked as though he wanted to answer that, but he didn't get the chance—because at that moment there was a great clatter behind them, and both Splinter and Leonardo turned to see Michelangelo tumble through the door to the dojo and land on his face, a pair of sunglasses skittering across the floor in front of him. In the doorway behind him, Donatello peeked cautiously around the frame, another pair of sunglasses perched on his head, and Raphael slapped a hand against his forehead, reaching out a foot to kick Michelangelo in one extended leg.

"Shell for brains."

Splinter folded his arms over his chest, not as surprised as he would have liked at finding his other three children awake as well. "My sons. What are you all doing out of your beds?"

"Oh, that." As usual Michelangelo was the first to speak, rising to brush the dust from his legs. "Well, Donny had a bad dream, and since Leo wasn't in his room he came to bother me. And then we were on our way out here when we ran into Raph, who was sneaking to the couch to catch some late night TV—I mean really ran into, Sensei. And I got my foot caught on Raph's foot and stumbled all the way in here, and interrupted your chat before I got to eavesdrop. Bummer, huh?"

"Shut up, Mikey," Raphael hissed, kicking at him again. But Michelangelo dodged this time, leaning down to retrieve his sunglasses at just the right moment so that Raphael's foot sailed harmlessly over him. Splinter shook his head.

"And the sunglasses, my son?"

"Oh." Michelangelo cleaned his glasses against his arm, whipping them back over his eyes as soon as the dust was gone. "I thought it might cheer Donny up to pretend to be secret agents on a super-secret mission for the British Secret Service, and I just had these lying around. But it's really hard to see in the dark with sunglasses on, which is prob'ly why I didn't see Raph coming until he bowled into me."

"You bowled into _me_," Raphael countered, swiping at his younger brother.

Splinter cleared his throat. "Whoever bowled into whom, children, it is much too late for you to be awake. Any of you," he added, sparing an extra look for Raphael and the TV remote lingering in one of his hands. "Or perhaps it would be better to say all of you. Now come—let us get back to bed."

"But I had a bad dream," Donatello protested, abandoning his post at the door and running to his father with arms wide open. "I dreamed about crocodiles again."

"Again, Donny? Even though you've got a room with a door now?" Raphael asked, drawing a pout onto his youngest brother's face.

"Crocodiles could break down a door."

"Ha—guess I'm the only safe one then, huh?" Michelangelo laughed, holding his sunglasses aloft in a triumphant fist. "'Cause I'm the only one that sleeps on a shelf, like a real secret agent."

"Crocodiles could get to a shelf," Donatello insisted, glaring at Michelangelo over his shoulder.

"What're you talking about, Mikey? Secret agents don't sleep on a shelf," Raphael cut in, bonking his younger brother on the head with one incredulous fist.

"How do you know?" Michelangelo asked, returning the blow with equal force. Raphael scowled at him.

"I just do, all right?"

"No, you don't," Michelangelo taunted, skipping out of Raphael's reach. "Nobody knows where secret agents sleep. Otherwise they'd all be caught. I bet they do sleep on a shelf. Nobody ever looks in for secret agents in the closet. Bet that's why they never get found."

"What's that got to do with crocodiles?" Donatello interrupted, turning back to face his brothers with both hands on his hips.

"I'm just saying." Michelangelo flipped his glasses back on and sent a smile around the room. "You all can hang with the crocodiles if you want. Me? I'm bunking with the secret agents."

"But I _don't_ want to hang with the crocodiles!" Donatello cried.

Michelangelo shrugged. "Sucks to be you."

"Children, children," Splinter soothed, taking Donatello by the arm and leaning down to pick up Leonardo's candle with his other hand. "There is no reason to worry about crocodiles. The only worry you should entertain is how tired you will be for practice tomorrow, if you stay up all night playing secret agents."

This time the look was meant for Michelangelo, whom Splinter wished he had a hand to catch as he approached the door and Michelangelo skipped back into the living room. As he had the only light in his grasp, Leonardo and Raphael followed him, falling into step behind their younger brothers as Splinter led the party back toward their beds, wondering again if there were no way to install external locks on their doors. Michelangelo laughed and shot Donatello with his fingers and Donatello swatted at him, put out by the nightmare that had awakened him in the first place—and when Splinter stopped at the door to Leonardo's room, the first on the way, it was Donatello who pushed the door open, pausing in the open doorway to look back at his brother with great, wide eyes.

"It's okay if I sleep with you, right, Leo?" he asked. "I can't sleep in my room."

Leonardo's face, which had been thoughtful ever since his father's last words of wisdom, found a little smile, and he nodded at Donatello and the door. "Sure, Donny. No problem."

"Thanks," Donatello said, an answering smile falling onto his face. Splinter smiled a little, too. Then he turned to lead the other children down the hall to their rooms—well, Raphael's room and the closet that Michelangelo slept in—but he hadn't gone far before Leonardo's voice stopped him, echoing well against the shadow-painted walls.

"Hey, Raph."

Raphael turned around, his forehead wrinkled in surprise that it was him Leonardo wanted to speak to. Leonardo shifted his feet and turned his face toward the wall, fingers fidgeting at his side.

"It was cool how you got that kick today."

Raphael blinked twice, the unexpected compliment clearing his forehead but chasing all of the surprise into his eyes—though Splinter did not miss the straightening of his eldest son's shoulder. Then the little turtle scoffed, shaking his head as he turned to move back down the hallway.

"Ah, shut it. You're just gonna kick my tail tomorrow."

Leonardo blinked back at him. Then he turned to enter his room—and though Splinter could not be certain, between the shadows and the flickering candlelight, it looked as though Leonardo were smiling as he threw an arm over Donatello's shoulders and disappeared into the darkness. Michelangelo skipped away from his side to grab Raphael's arm, grinning even as he ran into the wall under the blindness of his sunglasses.

"Leo's gonna kick Raph's tail, Leo's gonna kick Raph's tail. Maybe I'm gonna kick Raph's tail, too!"

"Watch it, you!"

Michelangelo laughed and ran and Raphael ran after him, and as the door to Raphael's room slammed shut behind them Splinter guessed that Leonardo and Donatello would not be the only children having a sleepover this night. Then he stopped in the hallway and turned back to smile at Leonardo's door—smiling at the dedication and longing for perfection that characterized his second son, the dedication and longing that would make Leonardo a strong warrior and a natural leader when a few more years had taken him by the hand.

_End Chapter 9_


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Moving into Leo's section. Two down, two to go.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Michelangelo laughed and ran and Raphael ran after him, and as the door to Raphael's room slammed shut behind them Splinter guessed that Leonardo and Donatello would not be the only children having a sleepover this night. Then he stopped in the hallway and turned back to smile at Leonardo's door—smiling at the dedication and longing for perfection that characterized his second son, the dedication and longing that would make Leonardo a strong warrior and a natural leader when a few more years had taken him by the hand._

.x.

And it had taken a few years, Splinter remembered, before Leonardo's natural dislike of failure began to shine in useful colors, instead of acting as the shackles that sometimes constrained his training. Not that his second son had ever truly come to peace with failure. But these days Leonardo's difficulties in accepting his shortcomings meant a serious, calm demeanor, sincere dedication to his training and a tendency, more recently, to drag his brothers into additional training with him. Splinter was not sure, when he thought on it, where his other children might have ended up without Leonardo constantly pushing them to work and improve.

As he was doing now, from the sound of things in the next room over.

"Aw, come on—give a guy a break, Leo. I just moved like five hundred pounds of stuff. That's gotta earn me at least a five-minute breather."

"Five hundred pounds of DVDs, Mikey, which you weren't supposed to be messing with in the first place. What happened to focusing on the essentials?"

"Hey, work is work, right? And like every skilled worker in America, I've got the right to take my breaks. You don't like it, you can talk to my union rep."

Leonardo gave a heavy sigh, a sigh Splinter recognized well as the sound of someone dealing with Michelangelo's particular brand of eccentricity. Then his second son walked away from his troublesome younger brother, his footsteps almost as resigned as his last instructions.

"Well, don't break too long, all right? We still have a lot to do."

"You got it, boss!" Michelangelo sang out, his voice accompanied by the squeak of couch springs as Splinter's next to youngest settled back into relaxation. "Fifteen minutes tops. On my honor."

"What honor?" Raphael asked the invisible room, his voice rumbling low against the walls.

Leonardo sighed again. "Let Mikey alone, Raph. Help me move this table."

"Sure, I'll let Mikey alone," Raphael grumbled, his words strained with exertion or perhaps the clash of exasperation and amusement Splinter guessed had creased his forehead. "As soon as I crack his skull for sticking us with all the work."

"Aw, don't feel bad, Raph," Michelangelo called. "I'm the brains and you're the brawn, remember? You just keep doing your thing, Muscles, and I'll do mine."

"I thought I was the brains," Donatello cut in, his tone only half indignant.

"We'll see what kinda brains you are, once I get through with you," Raphael threw back to Michelangelo.

"All right, guys. Let's stay focused. We don't have all night."

Leonardo's last admonishment simmered the exchange down to a series of gravel mumbles and brought a smile to Splinter's face, a smile that stayed with him as he turned from the interaction invisible to all but his ears and gazed across the pictures in his arms once more. That control, and the calm demeanor that came with it, were legacies of Leonardo's childhood, although time had smoothed their ragged edges, as it smoothed all things.

It didn't show—or perhaps it did, after all—in the tight, faltering lines of his drawings, in the shrubs that were hardly green and the superheroes with ghostly faces, but Leonardo had always been the most determined of Splinter's children to understand the world and his place in it, and to act in accordance with that place. It was that determination, Splinter thought, that had made Leonardo into the leader he was—and that, in his childhood, had made him such a fast and thorough learner. That had led to his second son being the first among his brothers to do so many things.

.x.

"It is time for lunch, my sons. Are you hungry?"

From where they sat all in a row on the floor of the living room, one cheerfully colored pacifier slipped into each mouth, four sets of little eyes blinked back at him, responding no more than if he had not spoken at all. The young turtles looked at their father and then at each other, and then Michelangelo seemed to lose all interest in sitting up and toppled over onto his back, his pacifier shooting from his mouth like a missile at the impact of his shell hitting the rug. Michelangelo blinked at the escaping article and then put his newly open mouth to good use, setting off on the string of nonsense syllables of which he never seemed to grow tired.

"Ba ba ba ra ra ra la la la da da da…"

Splinter sighed, leaning over Michelangelo to retrieve the orange-rimmed pacifier and putting it back into his next to youngest's mouth before the meaningless outpouring could earn any more than a glare from Raphael, seated to his right. Then he shook his head, stepping back out of the plastic pipe and netting playpen he had constructed himself, smiling as best he could at the four pairs of eyes still watching him with apparently no comprehension at all.

"Wait here quietly, children. I will return when I have prepared your chairs. Is that all right with everyone?"

Michelangelo slurped his pacifier, Raphael narrowed his eyes, Donatello shifted in his seat and Leonardo tilted his head to one side, at least assuming the appearance of comprehension. Splinter held himself back from another sigh. All of the parenting guides he had been able to get his hands on—which was not a great amount, honestly, and of course only addressed the development of human children—claimed that his sons were reaching the age at which children began to understand what was said to them.

Occasionally Splinter felt that he might be getting through to one or two of the young turtles—by and large, however, he might as well have been expecting comprehension from a quartet of brick walls.

"I will return in a moment," he finished, backing toward the kitchen.

Donatello lifted a hand to wave. Michelangelo did the same from his position on his back, but his aim was off or the next to youngest turtle was developing a mischievous streak rather early, because his hand smacked squarely into the back of Raphael's head on the way up, which earned Michelangelo a return blow to his knee. Splinter considered going back to separate them. But since the single blow seemed to be the worst Raphael had in mind, in the end he left them to it, all too aware that the sooner he got his hungry, troublesome children into their high chairs, the better things would be.

Of course, 'high chairs,' like almost everything in the lair, was a relative term.

Splinter entered the kitchen and went immediately toward the far wall, away from the few appliances he had salvaged from the dump and around the low-set table toward a set of four mismatched structures. One of them truly was a high chair—Splinter had been lucky enough to find one on an early junkyard visit, back when all four of his sons could fit, and would consent to fit, into a camping backpack.

It was not a particularly beautiful chair, and when he'd found it one leg had been broken far shorter than the others—but it had been easy enough to bring the others down to the same height, and as it still had the tray that was made to fit its bars Splinter considered it a spectacular find. Very useful, too, for his eldest child, because the tray stopped Raphael from squirming out of his seat before the rest of the family finished their meal—a godsend with his most temperamental son.

His most temperamental son, who had recently decided that anything put into his mouth needed to be spit across the room and stopped being trustworthy with his banana mush. So Splinter slid the real high chair up next to his own chair, where he could prevent—or, at the least, interrupt—Raphael's bouts of battle with his food.

Donatello was not a squirmer. He was a whiner, though, and Splinter had learned early that it was more heartache than it was worth to try to force Donatello into something he considered uncomfortable. Which was why Donatello's high chair, such as it was, consisted of a baby's car seat that Splinter attached to a chair the same size as his to bring it up to height. It had a chest buckle as well as a lap buckle, which kept Donatello securely in his place—an important precaution recently, since Splinter had been seating Donatello across the table from himself.

It was a change Donatello was not fond of at all. The youngest of the turtles didn't much care for feeding himself, especially when he had always been so favored before. But with the situation as it was, there was nowhere else to put him, and the table was not so wide that Splinter could not reach across it and slip a spoonful of mush into Donatello's mouth, if that was absolutely required.

Michelangelo's chair was a work of art.

Michelangelo had presented his father, when the need for high chairs came around, with a unique dilemma. Michelangelo took after his eldest brother in terms of his table manners: he squirmed and tried to free himself from his chair if he wasn't interested in eating, and if he was he still squirmed, though in that case usually toward the table rather than away from it.

At first Splinter had tried Michelangelo in the actual high chair—but unlike Raphael, Michelangelo was slight enough in his build to slip out under the tray if he set his mind to it, and had even wormed his way out the space beneath the arm rest once, when Splinter's hands had been blocking his normal escape route. Michelangelo needed absolute containment. Which was the basis for Splinter's ultimate solution: a newspaper crate wired to a short stool, with holes cut in the crate wide enough for Michelangelo's legs to fit through but not a centimeter farther.

Michelangelo had yet to escape from this chair—especially after Splinter threaded a rope through the back, which he could tie around his son's stomach like a seatbelt whenever the young turtle seemed particularly energetic. All the same, Splinter was not sure whether to be annoyed or impressed that the failure was not for lack of trying.

These days, Michelangelo sat next to Donatello on the opposite side of the table, which did not make him very happy either—not because he wanted to be next to his father, but because he wanted to be next to Raphael, whom he seemed to enjoy annoying all the more when his elder brother was trying to eat. Splinter was honestly glad to his bones that current circumstances did not allow his two most disruptive children to sit together at present, even if it did mean Michelangelo feeding rather vigorously off of Donatello's tray.

And then there was Leonardo's chair.

Splinter was sad to admit he seemed to have run out of ingenuity before he got to Leonardo's high chair; he was only lucky that Leonardo did not require much. Leonardo could not really be said to exhibit table manners—what very young child could?—but he did not squirm and he did not try to leave the table before his brothers, nor did he usually throw his food around the table or steal from his brothers' plates. He did have trouble getting food into his mouth sometimes, which tended to result in a very messy face for his second son—but of all the trouble Splinter confronted at the dinner table, mess was by far the easiest to deal with.

So Splinter had ended up just setting Leonardo in a chair like his own, with a few phone books to lift him higher, and letting him use the edge of the table as a plate. For safety he wrapped a belt around Leonardo's stomach and then through the back of the chair; but even this small gesture had yet to prove necessary, for which Splinter was thankful, as he wasn't at all sure the belt would have been enough.

With a small sigh, Splinter placed Leonardo's chair beside his own. Leonardo's place had not always been at his elbow. But Leonardo had been the first among his brothers to truly embark on the quest of eating solid food—so much so that he tired of banana mush and wanted to eat off of Splinter's plate, or at least to be given the same things. This made it easier, for the moment, to keep Leonardo at his side during meals. At least, it made feeding Leonardo easier. Splinter was fairly sure it had ratcheted the difficulty of mealtime in total up a few notches.

All the same.

With chairs, bottles, bananas and a mash of sweet potatoes in place, Splinter set his own plate—peas, carrots and a large dinner roll. Then he turned back to retrieve his charges from the living room, preparing his heart for the chaos soon to follow.

The turtles had stayed relatively out of trouble in his absence. Donatello was sitting right where he had been left, holding onto a stuffed bear that was missing both ears. Leonardo had stayed put, too, although he was missing his pacifier. It hadn't gone far; it was just in Michelangelo's mouth, alongside his orange one, so that Michelangelo was sucking on the rubber of one pacifier but the plastic of the other and creating a wheezing sound with every intake of breath. Which might have been, but was not necessarily, the reason that Raphael had taken his own pacifier in his hand and was beating Michelangelo in the head with it, a show of violence that his brother did not seem to notice.

Relatively out of trouble.

"Come, my sons. Let us get this over with," Splinter said, bending down to pull Donatello and Raphael into his arms. He felt, as he did so, not a little like the man in the riddle he had once read who was trying to transport two hens and a fox across a river in a boat made for two. Some children would not behave if left behind, others would fight, others it was simply a bad idea to leave together, even harnessed into their high chairs… the old rat did what he could.

Raphael pulled his whiskers as he was sealed into his seat with the tray, and Donatello's face fell, a sheen of tears collecting in his eyes as his father walked away and left him in the kitchen. But Splinter was quick at retrieving his children by now, and his youngest had not gotten through more than his pout before he reappeared with Leonardo and Michelangelo in his arms. When those two were settled as well into their chairs, Splinter doled out mush in equal measures to all of his sons—then he settled down in his chair to watch them, too wise by far to expect much time to eat his own meal.

Raphael took one look at his food and smeared his fingers in it, then reached out toward Donatello, intent on sliming his youngest brother with the banana residue. Splinter caught his hand with a wet rag long before he got there, and with a quick swipe of a rubber spoon he had a glob of the mush in Raphael's mouth, much to the consternation of his eldest.

"Let Donatello alone, Raphael. Eat your own meal," Splinter said, though he did not expect much compliance. Raphael frowned and spit banana back onto his tray. Splinter swallowed back a sigh. But he didn't have time for more than that, because Michelangelo was pushing his bottle against the rim of his tray with great gusto, determined to knock the whole thing to the floor.

"No, Michelangelo. This is food. It is not a toy," Splinter tried, steadying the bottle just at its tipping point and pushing it back into Michelangelo's little hands. Michelangelo grinned up at him and shrieked. Splinter shook his head at the obvious demonstration of how little his next to youngest understood of what was said to him; then he was forced to leave Michelangelo to his own devices, because a plaintive whine had begun on the opposite side of the table, a sound he knew well as the warning bell for a tantrum.

"What is the matter, Donatello?" Splinter asked the youngest turtle, earning nothing but a heavy-eyed glare and a wavering lip in response. Not that he needed a response. With another glance at Michelangelo, who was chewing now on the side of his bottle instead of the nub, Splinter armed himself with another rubber spoon and began to feed Donatello as well, interspersing bites of sweet potato with the struggle to get another bite of anything into Raphael's mouth.

In the midst of confusion that required more of his ninja skills than he would have liked to admit, Splinter glanced over at Leonardo to check on his second son's progress. Leonardo alone among his children seemed interested in his food—or rather, in his father's food, as he did his best to pick handfuls of peas off of the old rat's plate. Splinter didn't have a moment to wipe the dribble of banana off of Leonardo's chin, but he did have a moment to smile, as he stuck one spoon in Donatello's mouth and used his temporarily empty hand to push Michelangelo down in his seat.

The ability to eat solid food, as well as the dexterity to do so, were developmental and didn't have so much to do with the mannerisms of a child, he suspected. But Splinter guessed that Leonardo's determination to eat what he himself was eating had a great deal to do with emulation—and that was a thought that made him smile, because there was a show of will in it that Leonardo was the first of his children to display. The will to grow up.

Splinter had survived only a few more minutes of the chaos of mealtime—with no chance yet to touch his own food—when catastrophe took its familiar place at his table. Raphael had just performed the rather irritating feat of spitting his baby spoon onto the floor when Splinter looked up from his crouch to see that Leonardo, having exhausted his father's supply of peas, had taken a carrot in his small fist. The carrots were small, but not small enough—just large enough to choke on, Splinter thought to himself as he straightened, catching his feet on the legs of Raphael's chair as he tried to hurry around the table. A choking Leonardo was the last thing in the world he needed at the moment…

But either Leonardo did not like the look of the carrot or his young mind had already decided it was too dangerous to try, because the little turtle didn't put it in his mouth—much to Splinter's amazement, Leonardo sent the carrot rolling away across the table and turned to look back at him, his eyes asking for another source of food. Splinter relaxed a little from his rush. Then he smiled again and brushed a hand across the top of Leonardo's head, taking a moment to look down at his second son even though Donatello had started up his whine again.

"Would you like more peas, my son?" he asked, already dipping another spoonful onto his plate. Leonardo smiled back at him. Splinter didn't know whether the smile was for the peas or because he had understood his father's question; either way, he decided to take it as an encouraging sign.

He had relaxed too soon.

"Kh… khk…"

With a slight stutter and a stalling inhale, Michelangelo began to rock back in his chair, his head wobbling with the rest of him as his mouth gaped open and closed. Splinter's eyes shot to his next to youngest and then to the tabletop, where Leonardo's rejected carrot had been—but it was gone, and Michelangelo's face was losing its brilliant green, his eyes growing wider with every mired breath. Splinter raced around the table to beat a graying hand against Michelangelo's back.

"Spit that out, Michelangelo. You should not eat that. Spit that out, my son, spit that—"

Michelangelo spit it out. The great force of his cough hurled the carrot across the table and into Donatello's eye, the perfectly aimed missile earning a shriek and then a descent into tears from Splinter's already unhappy child. Splinter waited half a moment to make sure that Michelangelo's breathing had returned to normal; then he stuck the orange pacifier back into his mouth and hurried to comfort Donatello, who would stop wailing for nothing until he had been unbuckled from his car seat and lifted into Splinter's arms.

"Come now, Donatello. Come now. Let us be calm," Splinter urged, pausing in his pats against the little turtle's back to toss the carrot away into the bucket that served as his sink. Donatello kept crying, burying his face in the cloth of his father's robe. Splinter sighed.

"Ba da ba," Michelangelo sang out, his pacifier once more expelled from his mouth. Leonardo continued calmly eating the peas off of Splinter's plate, as though all the commotion were none of his business. And Raphael, whose face was a mask of spite and temper, had gotten Splinter's dinner roll into his mouth, wedged between vice-like little jaws—and although he could not swallow or even chew it, the look in his eldest's beady eyes told Splinter he would not be getting his dinner roll back, no matter how badly he wanted it.

Splinter took another glance around the table and decided to let him have it. He seemed to have lost the better part of his appetite in any case.

.x.

"So the second billy goat Gruff came up to the…"

"Ba'ridge?" Donatello asked, looking up at Splinter from his place in the old rat's lap. The youngest turtle was sitting between his father and the book in his hands, and he was pointing to the last word on the page, his forehead wrinkled just a little with the effort of reading it. "Is it b'ridge?"

Splinter gave a half-smile, patting Donatello's arm. "Very good, my son. That is bridge." Then he glanced at the little turtle sitting beside his elbow, tilting his head toward the book. "You see, Leonardo? Bridge."

Leonardo looked at his father in silence for a long minute, as though gauging the importance of this lesson. Then he leaned into Donatello to get a better look at the book, but pulled back after barely glancing at it, because Donatello didn't like being leaned on and had begun to wiggle.

"Bridge," Leonardo repeated dutifully—but to Splinter, even his young face looked skeptical, as though he realized how little educational value this exercise truly had.

Splinter held his sigh. He knew as well as Leonardo that one did not teach a child to read over the shoulder of his brother—but he had no energy to devote to that problem this afternoon. Not after the morning that had preceded it.

Splinter's day had begun like this:

Breakfast was always an exciting time in the lair. This morning it had gone past exciting and into troublesome, and at the hands of an unlikely set of culprits: Leonardo and Donatello. Splinter usually considered the two his least difficult children, especially when they were put together, but he had barely left the two of them beside a stack of picture books while he returned to the kitchen to supervise Michelangelo and Raphael's washing of the dishes before Donatello came running to him in tears, dispensing not so much as a word of explanation before he threw himself into his master's robe.

"Donatello. What is the matter?" Splinter had asked, lifting his confused eyes to Leonardo where his elder child stood in the doorway, both hands on his hips.

"Leo's being mean!" Donatello answered through his wail. "He said they killed the wolf!"

"He said who killed the wolf?" Splinter had tried to soothe Donatello with his gentle hand, but the effort was to no avail. The youngest of the turtles just kept crying, refusing to even look up at his baffled father.

"Red Hood and Grandma," Donatello answered, losing part of the young girl's name as he often did when speaking of book characters. "Leo said they killed the wolf, and not chased it away."

Splinter looked up at his second son. "Leonardo?"

Leonardo frowned. "But they do, Sensei. The hunter does."

"Why do you say that?" Splinter asked.

"'Cause he's a hunter," Leonardo explained, his frown growing sharper by the moment. "Hunters do that, Sensei."

Splinter found it difficult to reply to that statement, all the more difficult when Donatello, always his most peaceful child, looked up at him with great, tear-filled eyes and demanded to know that Leonardo was lying.

Splinter had not been able to give either of his children the answer they wanted. Instead he had chosen a different option altogether: He had set Leonardo and Raphael down in front of a movie and taken Donatello back into the kitchen with him, setting aside the dishes in hopes that working a puzzle with a notably disinterested Michelangelo would help Donatello calm down.

But either Leonardo was in a particularly troublesome mood that day or Splinter had not been careful enough with his choice of movie. In either case, Splinter's day had continued like this:

Barely fifteen minutes had passed before raised voices called Splinter into the living room, not a little annoyed that another fight had been started so soon after the first.

"What is the matter, my sons?" he had asked, on seeing Leonardo and Raphael engaged in pushing each other toward the edge of the couch.

"Leo said it's gotta happen this way. But that's not true! He'd never lose that way," Raphael told him, his voice loud but completely unintelligible in his father's tired ears.

"But he did lose that way," Leonardo cut in, crossing his arms over his chest. Raphael pushed him again, almost sending Leonardo toppling off the couch.

"No way!"

"Raphael," Splinter admonished, moving forward to catch Leonardo's shoulders before the little turtle spilled off onto the floor. "It is not all right to push your brother this way. And please slow down in your explanation. I do not understand."

"In the movie," Raphael growled, waving one dismissive hand at the screen. "The Mace guy. He's good at fighting. He's not gonna lose really fast. He's not losing at all!"

Splinter glanced over at the television, where Ewoks: The Battle for Endor continued to play unheeded. He was not familiar enough with the movie to know exactly what Raphael was referring to, but he could see a similar thread cropping up in this argument as it had in the last—a thread that had sent a spread of wrinkles across Leonardo's forehead.

"But he did lose," Leonardo insisted, looking up at Splinter with self-righteous eyes. "He lost so fast. That's how it happened, Sensei. Raph can't say it's not."

Raphael tried to jump at his brother again, and Leonardo made to jump back, and through the throb of his headache it was all Splinter could do to lead them back into the next room, where Donatello was completing the puzzle alone. After a moment's thought Splinter pushed Leonardo into the adjacent toy room, where Michelangelo had sneaked off to and was splayed out on the carpet with the plastic animal toys, before returning to find an activity for the excessively upset Donatello and steaming mad Raphael to engage in together.

At least Leonardo and Michelangelo wouldn't fight, he had thought. It was the best he could hope for, in the end…

"Read more," Donatello insisted, dragging Splinter's attention back to the present and the two turtles sitting with him on the couch. Donatello's expression had dipped into a frown at his long, remembering silence, and the little turtle patted the page before them with a chubby hand, disrupting his father's reverie. "What happens next, Sensei?" Donatello asked, though they had read this book more times than Splinter could count and he must certainly know the story by now.

Splinter shook his head. "Yes, yes, my son," he soothed, sparing a glance at disinterested Leonardo before he continued reading. "So the second billy goat Gruff came up to the bridge, and his hoofs went _trip trap trip trap_ as he walked across…"

But the story was so familiar that even as he read Splinter's mind began to wander, inevitably shifting back to the morning that had led him to this couch with two children at his side and two children running amok somewhere in the liar. A morning in which all of his children seemed determined to be difficult…

Splinter's morning had ended like this:

It couldn't have been more than five minutes after Splinter managed to cheer Donatello up and calm Raphael down—through the momentous task of convincing Raphael to play Donatello in a game of Go Fish— when all of a sudden the sounds of a squabble in the next room caught his attention, heralded by the raised voices of his two absent children.

An actual fight between Leonardo and Michelangelo was so rare that, in spite of fussy Donatello and sullen Raphael, Splinter had gone next door to check on his middle children, and found them engaged in a tug-of-war of sorts, Leonardo trying to drag his brother back toward a field of fallen plastic ducks. Leonardo had never in his young life been interested in toys, particularly not a specific toy, and Michelangelo did not usually resist playing with his brothers, especially when there were toys involved—and between the two of them, Splinter could hardly find the words to ask what the trouble was.

"I was play'ng, Sensei!" Michelangelo had said, yanking on the arm Leonardo had grabbed. "I was play'ng wi'the duck an' th'little ducks an' Leo stopped me, he doesn' wanna play but he says I hav'ta play wi'them different, an' I don' wanna play wi'them anymore but he won't let go—"

"Leonardo? Why are you bothering your brother?" Splinter asked, interpreting from Michelangelo's long complaint at least that Leonardo had started this. Leonardo looked up at his father's perplexed and displeased face, and then he let go of Michelangelo, maintaining his sharp frown.

"He was playing wrong," Leonardo said, gesturing to the ducks behind him. "You read us the story all the time, Sensei, but he was playing it wrong. I want to show him how the story goes."

Splinter had a frown of his own now, though one of confusion more than reprimand. "What story, my son?" he asked, as Michelangelo came to stand beside him.

"The Ugly Duckling," Leonardo answered, shrugging as though the answer should have been obvious. "He was playing with the ducks, but he didn't have an ugly one. And then I gave him an ugly one, but he didn't want to send it away. I just want him to play the right way, Sensei," the young turtle finished, pointing now to the small stack of picture books Donatello had left on the floor. "The way you tell the story."

This was the trouble with Leonardo. He was not usually a troublesome child—but when he was, Splinter rarely knew how to explain things to him. With a sigh for the headache that was flaring up again, Splinter put a hand on Leonardo's shoulder, searching for words.

"The Ugly Duckling is not the only story that involves ducks, my son," he said at last. Leonardo blinked at him.

"It's the only one we ever heard," he returned, and Splinter lamented again their limited supply of picture books. But he pressed on nonetheless, keeping his voice steady.

"Be that as it may, there are many stories about ducks. And anyone who wants to play with the ducks may also make up their own story. Michelangelo may play with the ducks any way he likes," Splinter said. "Do you understand, Leonardo? There is no right or wrong way to play with the ducks."

Leonardo had studied him carefully, watching him with that same searching gaze that always made Splinter feel his next to oldest was imprinting everything his father did or said onto his soul—the gaze that made said father so nervous about what he was teaching his son. But the moment had been broken before Leonardo could respond, because Michelangelo had made himself busy gathering up the ducks and then returned to dump them at Leonardo's feet, annoying his brother not a little with the plastic invasion.

"Leo can have all the ducks," Michelangelo had announced, returning to Splinter's side. "He can have all th'ducks 'cas I don' wanna play with'm anymore, an' I don' wanna play wi'Leo anymore either, 'cas his games're really boring."

And that had been the end of his short-lived peace—the only peace he had gotten all morning.

It was after that disaster that Splinter had tried to settle his children down for story time, and for half a minute it had almost seemed to be working. But then Michelangelo had teased Raphael about being the troll under the billy goats' bridge, and Raphael—who Splinter knew had always fancied for himself the role of the biggest billy goat—had chased after him in a young rage, leaving the other three members of their family stranded on the couch.

And since Donatello had begun to whine again as soon as his father made to go after them, Splinter had decided to give up on controlling his two wild children, and to content himself with entertaining the two who had stayed by his side.

Which brought him to the moment. Donatello, who was still fussy; Leonardo, who was still sulking; and no sign of the other two, except for the vague impression of noise coming from one of the other rooms.

"At last the third billy goat Gruff, who was much bigger than his brothers, came up to the bridge, and his hoofs went _trip trap trip trap_ as he walked across," Splinter continued, turning the page. "The troll jumped onto the bridge and said, 'Who is that _trip trapping_ over my bridge?' 'It is I—the third billy goat Gruff'…"

"Sensei?" It was Leonardo who spoke, and his voice was accompanied by a slight tug on his master's sleeve. Splinter glanced down at the little turtle, who had a pensive look on his face. Leonardo picked at the threads of the couch. "Are there other billy goat stories, too?"

Splinter rubbed his chin. "I believe there are," he said, though he couldn't think of any off-hand. Leonardo nodded to himself, turning away from the book again.

"Good."

It was an odd comment for his next to oldest—odder, considering the fight he and Michelangelo had gotten into earlier that day. Odd enough that Splinter had to ask. "Why is that good, my son?"

"Because these billy goats did a bad thing," Leonardo said, only confusing Splinter more with every word. "Maybe in another story they didn't."

"What bad thing is that, Leonardo? Do you mean when the third billy goat knocked the troll from the bridge?" the old rat asked, drawing a nod from peaceful Donatello.

"I don't like that part either," his youngest agreed, burrowing deeper into his father's lap. "They should have been friends with the troll."

"No, that's not the bad thing," Leonardo told him, folding his arms in a manner that Splinter recognized as his own lecturing pose. "The troll tried to eat them—it's okay that he got pushed off. I meant the little and middle goats. They put their brother in danger so the troll wouldn't eat them." Leonardo turned his eyes back to Splinter, waiting for confirmation. "That was a bad thing to do. Right, Sensei?"

Splinter wondered, not for the first time, how he had managed to raise a child with such determination to tell right from wrong, when half of the time he felt that his other three only understood the word 'want'. But Leonardo was waiting for an answer, so he chose not to dwell on it now, instead reaching down to pat his next to eldest's back.

"Well, Leonardo… do you think the third billy goat Gruff wants to protect his brothers?"

"Yes," Leonardo said, without a note of hesitation. Splinter raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you think so?"

"Because he's their older brother," the little turtle answered. "And that's what older brothers do."

Had Splinter taught him that, or had he decided it himself? Either way, it made Splinter smile, a smile he kept as he turned back to the book. "In that case, it is not such a bad thing for the billy goats to let their older brother fight the troll. Is it, my son?"

Leonardo looked away to consider that, and his serious face deepened Splinter's smile, distracting him for a moment from the long day it had been and the turtle still squirming in his lap. It was times like these when Splinter realized that his second son was the first of his brothers—and might be the only one for a long time—to truly engage in critical thinking, examining the world and his perceptions of it and trying to find the truth within them.

It was an inclination not everyone had, and an inclination Splinter was more than a little proud of; so proud that he managed to keep his temper when Raphael and Michelangelo burst into the room a moment later and clambered over the couch, kicking their master in the shoulder and upsetting Donatello with their raucous voices.

"The troll's after me!" Michelangelo shouted, beating his brother over the armrest and scrambling to hide behind Leonardo. "Save me, Leo!" he wailed through his grin. "Save me from the big bad troll. Just like the third goat in the story!"

"I'll show you who's a troll," Raphael yelled, knocking the book out of Splinter's hands as he barreled after Michelangelo.

"My book!" Donatello cried.

"No need, Raph. You already did!" Michelangelo yelled back through his unstoppable laughter.

And although he was once again ringed with chaos and commotion, Splinter held on to a sliver of his smile. For all the noise and disorder that came with raising four tireless little turtles, there were moments like this when he was so glad that he did: moments when he could see past the present, past the fight in his lap and the tussle at his feet, to the souls of the adults his sons were going to be. That was a sight that always brought a smile to his face.

_End Chapter 10_


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Moving into Leo's section. Two down, two to go.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_I'll show you who's a troll," Raphael yelled, knocking the book out of Splinter's hands as he barreled after Michelangelo._

"_My book!" Donatello cried._

"_No need, Raph. You already did!" Michelangelo yelled back through his unstoppable laughter._

_And although he was once again ringed with chaos and commotion, Splinter held on to a sliver of his smile. For all the noise and disorder that came with raising four tireless little turtles, there were moments like this when he was so glad that he did: moments when he could see past the present, past the fight in his lap and the tussle at his feet, to the souls of the adults his sons were going to be. That was a sight that always brought a smile to his face._

.x.

"Sensei, can I borrow your teapot?"

Splinter had been asked a lot of strange things in his life—more, ever since Michelangelo had learned to talk. The teapot was a first. Splinter blinked for a moment at the book that had been peacefully passing his time, wondering what his strictly juice-drinking son wanted his teapot, and then he put the book down, signaling the end of the rare moment of quiet that Michelangelo showed no remorse over intruding upon.

Michelangelo gave his master his best smile. "Please?" he added, the word making Splinter even more suspicious of his next to youngest's motives.

"What do you need it for, my son?"

"Raphi n' me are playing Aladdin," Michelangelo said, "and we need a lamp. So can we?"

Splinter glanced toward the kitchen with wary eyes, turning the question over in his mind. He only had one teapot, and because there had not been time to be choosy it was a great ceramic one, heavier than Michelangelo could probably carry with ease. Not to mention that Michelangelo and Raphael, no matter what they were playing with, tended to be unrivaled forces of destruction.

Still, it had been one of those rare days so far when all of his children seemed to be getting along: morning training was remarkably uneventful, and they had been playing quietly this afternoon except for a few minor squabbles—and honestly, Splinter would have been more worried if those petty disagreements had been absent. He didn't want to risk disrupting that. So with a sigh Splinter closed his book and stood up from the chair, leading a skipping Michelangelo into the kitchen, sending the little turtle a pointed look over his shoulder.

"Do be careful with it, Michelangelo."

"Oh, no worries, Sensei. I'll be so careful. I'm a ninja, after all," Michelangelo told him proudly, stretching up eager hands for the old familiar teapot.

He staggered a little as the weight hit his chest, then he turned and tottered out the door on steps that did nothing to appease his master's concern, lilting to one side and just missing smacking his head against the doorframe.

"Thanks a lot, Master Splinter. All the other genies are going to envy my super fashionable lamp. Even if it does smell like gross tea." With that, he was gone, and the teapot with him, leaving only one old rat by the stove, wondering if he would ever see his teapot whole again.

Splinter glanced for a moment between his abandoned book and the door Michelangelo had taken—but as his concentration was already broken, in the end he followed the little turtle's footsteps, interested to know what his other children were up to. The answer awaited him in the hallway: Donatello and Leonardo were doing something in the threshold of Donatello's doorway, and Raphael, a towel wrapped around his head, was watching impatiently as Michelangelo conversed with his calmer brothers.

"So just in case Raph decides to wish for a whole cast of Power Rangers, you guys've gotta be ready, okay? Leo, you can be the blue one—Donny, I guess you'll have to be the pink one, but…"

"The pink one's a girl," Raphael cut in.

Donatello frowned at his energetic brother. "Mikey, can't you see we're busy?"

"Well, yeah, I can see _you're_ busy," Michelangelo replied, reaching down to poke one of the machines in Donatello's lap before an olive hand swatted him away. He shrugged. "I just wanted to let Leo know that if he wants to do something interesting for a change, instead of messing with this mess, all the cool kids are playing Aladdin down the hall."

Raphael smirked a little at this and Donatello's frown grew more severe, but Leonardo only shook his head, glancing up briefly from the screwdriver he was using to dismantle an old radio. "Thanks, Mikey, but I'm helping Donny right now. Maybe later, okay?"

"That's too bad," Michelangelo replied, swinging the teapot back and forth in his arms. "I was going to have you be the genie so I could be the tyrannical villain Jafar-angelo. Oh well. I can just be a tyrannical genie instead."

"Mikey, the genie wasn't the bad guy in that movie," Leonardo told him, issues of continuity getting his attention as usual. Michelangelo shook his head.

"So naïve, Leo. Think about it. The genie's got all this power—especially at the end when Aladdin sets him free. You think somebody with all that power's not gonna use it for evil? You know what they say: Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Splinter wondered, from his spot in the hall doorway, where Michelangelo had heard that phrase. Leonardo just looked mildly alarmed.

"It doesn't have to be that way, Mikey—"

"Chill out, bro," Michelangelo cut in, balancing the teapot absently on his head. "No need to go all activist and save the genie's evil soul. C'mon, Raph—let's get to wishing. You guys have fun with your techno toys," he called down the hall as he and a chuckling Raphael scampered to the oldest turtle's room. Then it was just the three of them in the hallway, and Leonardo shook his head.

"Mikey's pretty weird sometimes."

"It's 'cause he watches too much TV," Donatello said, carefully lifting coils of wire out of the now open radio. "That's bad for your brain. I read about it on the computer."

Splinter took a moment to wonder if the computer wasn't bad for one's brain as well. He didn't ask. Instead he moved to stand beside his more sedate children, inspecting their project with cheerful, curious eyes.

"And what are the two of you constructing, Donatello?"

As Splinter had expected, Donatello's face swelled with pride at the question, bringing out the dimples on his round cheeks. "We're making a burglar alarm!" the little turtle told him.

Splinter blinked. "Burglars?"

Leonardo bent over a disembodied motor, his tongue stuck into one corner of his mouth. "Well, more like a Mikey alarm."

"Oh?"

"Yeah! Did you know Mikey's been coming into my room without permission?" Donatello railed, his smile forgotten. "And you know what he does? He steals my washers—my emergency washers—and uses them to make hats for his clothespin people. He says they're a band of traveling salesmen n' they need those hats, but I need them, too. Mikey should get his own!"

Splinter was a little surprised at the vehemence of his youngest son's tirade until Leonardo looked up at him with knowing eyes, lowering his voice as though to keep it from his brother. "Mikey took a lot of washers, Sensei."

"How many?" Splinter asked.

Leonardo winced. "Like fifty. It wasn't so bad when he just wanted salesmen, but now he thinks they make good helmets, too, and he conscripted the clothespin people into a big army. And then he asked Donny if he could have some more."

Splinter raised an eyebrow. "And you don't want to share your washers with your brother, Donatello?"

"No way!" Donatello fumed. "He takes so many without permission. I'm not letting him have any more."

"Aha. And that is why you are making a burglar alarm," Splinter finished, hoping the restatement would calm Donatello down. Leonardo smiled up at him.

"Yeah. You should hear Donny's plan, Sensei—it's pretty cool."

"It all starts with this," Donatello explained, holding up a coil of thin red wire. "I string this across the doorway, and on the one side it's connected to a speaker, and on the other side it's connected to this circuit. See?" he asked, pulling Splinter to the edge of the doorway to see the complicated mass of batteries and cords hidden behind the door. "Right now it's an open circuit, so there's no electricity getting to the speakers. But if somebody walked in and didn't see the wire, and they tripped on it, that would pull this latch closed 'n let the electricity go, and then there'd be energy getting to the speaker!"

Splinter smiled at his youngest son, trying to look like he had some idea what any of that meant. Donatello must have believed it, because he only paused for a short breath before the explanation went on.

"I didn't get to hook the speakers up to anything yet, but when I do there'll be a siren that goes off if somebody trips it. Right now it's just this staticky stuff." As demonstration the little turtle quickly fixed the wire in place and tugged at its middle, eliciting a crackle and a whine from the junkyard speakers. Donatello grinned. "So that way I'll know if somebody's breaking in!"

"That is very impressive, my son," Splinter replied, resting a hand on Donatello's shoulder. Leonardo stood up and brushed himself off, joining them in the doorway.

"Donny didn't even show you the coolest part yet, Master Splinter." Then he nudged his brother in the side. "Show him the walkie talkie, Don."

"Take a look at this!" Donatello bent down to retrieve a small box from the floor, and then he grabbed Splinter's hand and pulled his father halfway down the hall, almost panting in his excitement. He whirled around to wave at Leonardo. "Give it a tug, Leo!"

Leonardo pulled the wire gently toward himself, and with his naturally sharp ears Splinter could hear the sprinkle of static going up in Donatello's room—but much closer at hand, the device Donatello was holding out to him made the exact same noise, a chorus of clicks and pulses that lit Donatello's face like the sun.

"See? See? I used the transceiver from the radio to send the sound to the walkie talkie. So even if I'm far away, I'll still know if Mikey's up to something."

Splinter wondered if it were possible to get a wide-scale version made, so that he might know if Michelangelo was up to something no matter where he was. But that wasn't an important question, so Splinter set it aside, kneeling down until he was level with Donatello.

"This is very incredible work, Donatello. You are very smart to be able to come up with this all by yourself."

Donatello grinned, blushing a little at the well-deserved compliment. "I didn't do it all by myself," he said. "Leo helped a little."

"Nah, not really," Leonardo insisted, collecting his various tools and stepping carefully over the wire to replace them on Donatello's workbench. "Donny did all the hard stuff. I just got a few screws out."

"Still," Donatello persisted. He looped an arm through Splinter's, cradling his walkie talkie to his chest with a smile. "Thanks, Leo."

Leonardo smiled back. "Anytime, Don."

Splinter smiled with them. Mostly he was smiling for Donatello, and the amazing mind that proved itself more and more with every passing day. But a little part of him was smiling for Leonardo, too—the first of his brothers Donatello had ever trusted to assist with his projects. It was good for both of them, he thought, to have a little cooperation this way. And much as he enjoyed watching Donatello work, Splinter had enough on his plate that it might be prudent for Donatello to have a different assistant.

Splinter got slowly to his feet, his smile moving between both of his happy children. "This is a wonderful accomplishment, both of you. Perhaps to celebrate, the three of us could—"

"I'm gonna ring your scrawny little neck, Mikey!"

With a rush of air, two green blurs rushed past Splinter and into the dojo, cackles and shouts following their respective forms. Raphael was livid and Michelangelo was still clutching the teapot, Splinter noticed, as the pair came back for another pass—then they were gone, tearing down the hallway toward Leonardo's room with their voices galloping after them.

"Give me my wishes already, you stupid genie!"

"Gee, I would, Raph," Michelangelo said, skidding to a stop in front of Leonardo's door and tucking the teapot behind his back. "You're just not asking right."

"I can ask any way I want," Raphael yelled, backing Michelangelo into a corner. "Now give me my hundred bucks!"

"I was gonna, Raph," Michelangelo promised. "I was already giving 'em to you. I even put by hands up for antlers." The little turtle let go of the teapot with one arm to wiggle his fingers over his head. "Get it? Bucks?"

"That's not what I meant, Mikey!"

"Gosh, I wish you'd said so from the start," Michelangelo replied, his smile far too cheeky for his innocent eyes.

"Michelangelo, Raphael," Splinter scolded, marching toward them down the hallway. "That is quite enough—"

"Who wishes for a hundred bucks, anyway?" Michelangelo continued. "I would've made way better wishes."

"Oh, yeah?" Raphael leaned in, a menacing scowl on his face.

"Yeah." Michelangelo grinned. "First I woulda wished you were smarter."

Raphael growled and swung at his younger brother, but Michelangelo dodged easily, ducking around Raphael and edging backwards down the hall.

"Then I woulda wished you weren't so ugly."

"Michelangelo," Splinter warned.

"And finally, I woulda wished you had a sense of humor." Michelangelo paused a minute for effect, and then a mocking hand rose to his chin, the teapot locked tight within the cage of his arms. "Oh, wait. I forgot. There's no way I'd waste my three wishes on you!"

"I'm gonna rip your bones out!" Raphael howled, chasing Michelangelo toward Splinter down the hallway.

"Michelangelo! Raphael! That is enough!" Splinter's hands swept toward his eternally warring children, but he missed them both, Michelangelo ducking his elbow while Raphael slid through his legs. Either he was losing his edge or his sons had been taking their ninja training too seriously recently—whichever it was, they were out of his hands and heading straight for shocked, unmoving Donatello.

"Donny! Look out!" Leonardo cried.

"Incoming!" Michelangelo shouted. Then he barreled into Donatello and Raphael did the same half a second later, and the combined force of their collision sent the youngest turtle sprawling back into the living room and his precious, irreplaceable radio skittering down the hallway, its momentum multiplied tenfold by a chance brush with Michelangelo's foot.

Michelangelo and Raphael were still running. They were running straight for Donatello's room.

"Get back here!" Raphael shouted.

"Make me!" Michelangelo laughed.

"No! Don't come this way!"

But Leonardo's shout was just as vain as Donatello's screech, and in a second they were at the threshold, only Michelangelo's eyes growing suddenly wider as the wire glinting in their path.

"Whoa—what the heck is—"

With two quick steps and a half handspring, Michelangelo got across the trip wire at the expense of nothing but his balance. Raphael was not so agile. He tripped on the wire and fell hard on his chin—so hard that the walkie talkie lingering under his feet shot straight into the room and the wire came loose from Donatello's circuit, flinging a strip of snapped metal through the air as Raphael hit the ground. The fragment shot straight into Michelangelo's head and nailed him in the ear, and with a shriek the little turtle threw up his hands—hands that were still holding the heavy teapot, and then suddenly were not.

For a moment time seemed to still as Leonardo jumped into the air, arms outstretched as though to grab the teapot midair. Then Leonardo came down and the pot came down after him, and a tremendous crash filled the air as it landed squarely on his shell and shattered into a hundred pieces, the ceramic shards falling all around him.

Splinter took a very short moment to put his head in his hands, and remind himself never to loan Michelangelo anything he wanted back in one piece. Then he rushed down the hallway with Donatello on his heels, stepping over Michelangelo and Raphael's slowly rising forms to reach his next to eldest.

"Leonardo! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Sensei," Leonardo said, though he wisely didn't move as Splinter brushed the teapot pieces away from his back.

Donatello had his hands over his mouth, worried as he ever was when one of his brothers had come close to injury, and even Raphael had shuffled to his feet with unusual slowness, looking Leonardo over as he did so. But Michelangelo had recovered his humor when he recovered his feet, and he wasted no time in a good laugh, tripping over the fragments of teapot with a gracelessness that made Splinter almost more nervous for his next to youngest than apparently unharmed Leonardo.

"Geez, Leo. I gotta give you a perfect ten there—you had to set that up." Michelangelo leaned over and picked one of the larger ceramic shards from the carpet, waving it in an incorrigible hand. "I've dropped this thing, and Raph's kicked it, and we even knocked it off the counter once when we were horsing around, and it was totally fine. I've got hand it to you, man—all it needed was a little shell action. You must've been _trying_ to break it."

Splinter didn't see what was so funny about any of that.

Now that the majority of the glass had been swept into the carpet, there to await an unsuspecting foot or two, Leonardo got up slowly, frowning at Michelangelo and clutching something small and black in both hands. "I wasn't trying to break it, Mikey. I just didn't have a choice. It was going to land on this, so…"

As his voice trailed away, Leonardo held out his hands. Splinter knew he was not the only one surprised to see Donatello's walkie talkie resting on his next to eldest's palms. He was certainly not the most ecstatic—Donatello gave something not unlike a shriek and scurried forward completely mindless of the glass to pluck the small radio out of Leonardo's hands. Donatello looked wonderingly at the homemade electronic and then gave it a tight hug, and gave one to Leonardo as well, his eyes positively shining with admiration.

"You saved it for me, Leo. You're the best!"

"All that for a little plastic box?" Raphael grumbled, the tension that had held his shoulders so stiff the moment before positively slumping out of him. Michelangelo just kept laughing.

Splinter rubbed a hand against his forehead, and then he bent and continued collecting the shards of his only teapot, picking the slivers of white out of Donatello's carpet with careful claws. Leonardo's heart was in the right place, that was certain—but there had been not a few times when Donatello had made something and then tired of it within a day's time, and Splinter never tired of his tea.

Protecting his brothers' precious interests was all good and well—probably worth encouraging at another time, in another venue—but Splinter had to wonder, with all of Leonardo's training, if throwing himself on top of the radio and under the teapot was really the best he could come up with. Then he decided there would be additional obstacle training on his regiment for the next week—and resigned himself, shaking his head, to a cup of plain cold water.

.x.

Winter always made the city seem grayer than it was. The thick clouds that settled around the tops of endless hotels and skyscrapers, so dense as to blot out even the memory of the sun, pressed down on the world with a heavy silence, muting the parade of overcoats moving along the back streets, pushing two of the overcoats, and the shadows within them, faster along their way.

"Keep up, Leonardo."

Leonardo did his best to nod, though to Splinter's eyes the gesture was abbreviated by the great stock of grocery bags filling his arms. The little turtle, dressed in all the winter clothes his form could accommodate, jumped over a patch of ice to catch up with his father at the curb. Splinter glanced each way down the road in search of cars, and then spared a glance for the sky as he ushered Leonardo across the dirty asphalt, wishing he had a hand free to guide his second son. Unfortunately, their errand had taken care of that.

It was not snowing yet, but it would be soon. Splinter hoped they could get back into the sewers before that happened—visibility was difficult enough behind their stacks of supplies without the weather making things worse.

"Are you all right, Leonardo?" he asked as they moved out of the street again, pausing in the mouth of an alley to let other last-minute shoppers pass them by. Beneath the wide brim of his floppy hat, Leonardo nodded.

"Fine, Sensei," he said, readjusting his bags.

Splinter frowned. "The bags are not too heavy for you?"

"No," Leonardo insisted, even though Splinter could tell his arms were beginning to tire. His doggedness made Splinter want to smile, but the expression was interrupted as they passed through another crush of hurried pedestrians. The old rat shook his head.

"Come. We must get home before the weather worsens—or before your brothers get themselves into any great trouble."

Leonardo sent him a sideways look at that, his skeptical face asking whether Splinter truly believed the latter were possible, but he said nothing and only did his best to keep up with his father's pace, sticking close to the tail of Splinter's overcoat.

It was unfortunate that Splinter had realized how badly they were in need of provisions only today, Christmas Eve. He had meant to go shopping earlier in the week, but Donatello had been sick for several days and he hadn't felt comfortable leaving his youngest to only the care of his brothers. Because of the date, he could not follow his usual strategy of shopping early the following morning—the little shop he preferred to patronize, half for its secluded location and half for the habitual sleepiness of its proprietor, would be closed Christmas morning. He could probably have put the trip off if they'd resigned themselves to eating only ramen for a few days. But there was sure to be no end of trouble if Christmas came without the delicious food his children had come to expect. So Splinter had set out in search of groceries, taking one of his sons with him for help carrying the bags and leaving the rest safely in the lair. Well, he hoped they were still in the lair.

Splinter had not been entirely thrilled to leave Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello at home without so much as Leonardo for supervision. But he'd had very little choice in the matter, when it came to that.

"_Here, Donny?"_

"_Just a little higher, Leo," Donatello called, stepping back another foot to supervise Leonardo's hanging of Christmas lights along the top of their small, cheerful tree. Leonardo obliged him, rising onto his tiptoes on the stepladder to sling the lights over the top branches. Splinter, watching his children out of the corner of his eye as he pulled on an overcoat, nodded in approval, and Donatello clapped his hands, getting his brother's attention with the sound._

"_Perfect. Now let's see if I can get this part right…"_

_Leonardo jumped down off the stool and Donatello pressed a button on the small contraption in his hands, seemingly wired to an outlet and to the Christmas lights; as he did so, the lights came up and then began to blink, one string after another lighting up in a simple pattern. Leonardo nodded._

"_Nice job, Donny. How'd you get them to blink that way?"_

_Donatello flushed at the compliment. "Oh, it was pretty easy. Just a little reprogramming and the whole thing was taken care of," he said, rubbing a shy hand against the back of his neck._

_Splinter smiled at their simple teamwork, and then his gaze shifted in search of his other two children. On the other side of the room, Raphael and Michelangelo were curled up under blankets on the couch, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching a black and white movie on television._

"_Hey, Raph," Michelangelo started. "Do you think this guy really has such a wonderful life?"_

"_Beats me," Raphael grumbled back. "Looks boring as shell to me."_

"_So why're we watching it?" Michelangelo asked, stuffing a handful of popcorn—hand and all—into his mouth._

"'_Cause it's the only thing on," Raphael reminded him. "It's on like fifty freakin' channels."_

"_Oh, yeah."_

_Splinter cleared his throat. "My sons. Your attention for a moment, please?" The summons pulled four more or less attentive pairs of eyes to him as he settled a tall hat over his ears. "I must go to the surface for a few final things. I need—"_

"_Is it my present?" Michelangelo shouted, lurching over the back of the couch in a surprisingly smooth motion and running to grab his father's arm. "Is it, Sensei? Is it for me?"_

_Splinter sighed. "No, Michelangelo. Your present I secured quite a long time ago."_

"_Oh." Michelangelo dropped his hands, immediately losing interest and wandering back toward the couch. "Have a good time, then."_

_Splinter sent his next to youngest a sharp look before glancing around at his other sons. "As I was in the process of saying. I need someone to come with me, to assist in carrying things home. Would anyone like to come to the surface with me?"_

_Leonardo opened his mouth to speak, but Michelangelo beat him to it, waving one hand over his head as he clambered onto the top of the couch. "Oh, pick Leo, Sensei. Pick Leo!"_

"_Yeah," Raphael snickered. "He wants to go so bad he's practically wagging his tail."_

_Michelangelo laughed and Leonardo frowned at the back of his brother's head. Splinter crossed his arms over his chest._

"_Raphael."_

"_What? It's true. 'Sides, you're not gonna take Donny, since he's been sick, and Mikey and me are in the middle of this great move."_

"_Wonderful, Raph," Michelangelo said, prodding his brother in the head with one foot. Raphael smacked him._

"_Yeah, whatever. Wonderful. Anyway, why don't you just take ninja suck-up over there and get it over with."_

_Splinter shook his head. "You have been asked not to speak of your brothers that way, my son."_

"_Look, Sensei," Michelangelo cut in, though Splinter was not sure he was truly coming to Raphael's defense. "What Raph's trying to say is, we don't wanna help. I mean, Raph never wants to help, and I gotta be honest, if this isn't about my present then I'm not really up for it. Plus, if this movie's taught me anything, it's that winter gets really cold topside." Michelangelo pointed at the screen. "It might even be snowing!"_

_Raphael wrinkled his nose. "What's snow, anyway?"_

_Michelangelo shrugged. "Beats me. Looks cold."_

_Had they truly never seen snow before? Splinter tried to recall a time when his children might have been exposed to a New York winter, but he came up empty; the dangers of being spotted by increased foot traffic and the turtles' poor circulation as reptiles had kept the family largely underground in winter. Of course, experience was not the only way to understand the world, as Donatello's bright eyes were already proving._

"_It's frozen water," Donatello explained, straightening as he did whenever his science-oriented mind seemed to be in demand. "Water accumulates in the sky in the form of clouds, and then when it gets cold enough—"_

"_Yeah, whatever, Donny," Michelangelo interrupted him, earning a sulk from his younger brother. "Bottom line: frozen stuff's cold. Thanks but no thanks, Sensei. I've got a delicate composition—I think I'd better stay right here where it's warm."_

_There was nothing in the least delicate about Michelangelo. Splinter let that go for a moment, attempting to continue with his lesson about manners. "And do you not think Leonardo would get equally cold in the snow?" he asked._

_Michelangelo grinned. "Nah. He's got that warm, fuzzy feeling from doing the right thing to keep him warm."_

_Raphael snorted. "Definitely not a problem for you."_

"_That's okay, Raph. At least I've got my brains, huh?"_

"_Watch it."_

"_Children," Splinter sighed, wondering again whether he shouldn't drag these two along for the sake of peace at home, if not for the sake of karma. But a shuffle behind him held the words in his mouth, and he turned to find Leonardo pulling on a coat of his own, an exceptionally floppy hat wavering over his eyes._

"_It's okay, Sensei. I don't mind," Leonardo said, tugging mittens onto his hands. From the couch, Raphael snickered._

"_Told 'ja."_

_Splinter decided that allowing Leonardo to open his presents first in the morning might not be an unfair gesture._

_Leonardo finished with his boots and stood up, one hand taking hold of Splinter's sleeve. "Ready, Sensei?"_

_Splinter glanced at the time. Then he hurried Leonardo toward the door, wary of wasting the afternoon's window and still being without his groceries. "Yes, I am ready. Come, Leonardo. We must go."_

_Donatello walked them to the door, looking a little sheepish. "Sorry you have to go, Leo," the little turtle said, though his face told Splinter he didn't want to go very much either. Leonardo shook his head._

"_Don't worry about it. It's really not a problem."_

"_Try to get back before it snows," Donatello advised, his voice a little hushed over the weather phenomenon he'd never seen for himself._

"_Bon voyage!" Michelangelo called, sliding off of the back of the couch to land at Raphael's side._

"_Oh, nice going, lamebrain! You put your foot in the popcorn!"_

_Splinter made the executive decision to hurry out the door before he got involved in that._

Out in the cold of a season that did not dress the city in its best, Splinter shook his head. For the amount of groceries they had purchased in the end, it would have been better to bring two children along, he realized now—a realization that, if he'd had it earlier, would have given him a good reason to separate Raphael and Michelangelo, always the first measure toward preventing property damage. But the clock had been ticking—he and Leonardo had barely made it out of the small grocery store before closing as it was—and nothing took longer than arguing with Michelangelo, unless it was arguing with Raphael.

The old rat sighed to himself, pausing under a new-lit streetlamp to let Leonardo catch up. It was too late to worry about that now, in any case. He could only hope they weren't using Donatello for a toy again, as they had been the first day the water in the sewers froze. Donatello had taken none too kindly to being pushed back and forth over the ice on his shell, especially when an off-kilter shove from Raphael had pushed him into a wall.

Splinter felt something wet and cold flicker over his nose, and he looked up to find the first flakes of snow sailing down toward them, looking like little more than fragments of the clouds overhead. He shook his head again, resuming his quickened pace.

"Come, Leonardo. We must hurry now."

It took Splinter a moment to realize that Leonardo was not answering, nor could he hear the butterfly touch of little footsteps behind him on the sidewalk. Splinter glanced back at Leonardo to find the young turtle standing motionless beneath the streetlight he had just left, staring up at the whitewashed sky. Splinter turned back to look at him fully, a stitch of worry bothering his forehead.

"Leonardo?"

Leonardo breathed out and a puff of steam rose into the air, floating up until it disappeared against the clouds. "Sensei?" he asked. "Is this snow?"

There was a special look on Leonardo's face—an expression Splinter did not see very often on his second son. It was wonder, he decided after a moment. Leonardo's eyes were open wide, and his mouth was open just a little, too, as if with words he hadn't found yet. Splinter smiled. Then he moved back to stand with his next to eldest child—his most responsible, and the one he sometimes worried was growing up too fast—and looked up at the drifting storm himself, all of his haste draining from his mind.

"Yes, Leonardo. This is snow," he said, and wished he had a hand to settle on the little turtle's shoulder, to cement the moment and the silence between them.

They stood a moment without speaking before Leonardo's eyes turned to his master. "Mikey's right. It's kind of cold."

Splinter found his smile again. "It is cold, my son. But it is beautiful also, is it not?"

Leonardo nodded, forgetting about the weight of his grocery bags under the spell of the snow. Then he shifted his feet, rolling his eyes at a passing thought. "If Mikey was here—or even Donny or Raph, prob'ly—they'd try to catch them in their mouths. Like they do in movies."

Splinter looked at the snow, and back at Leonardo, and his eyes crinkled. With a passing chuckle, he leaned his head back, filling his eyes with the falling flakes. "I believe you are right, Leonardo," he said. "Perhaps we should catch a few in their place."

Leonardo stared at his father as Splinter opened his mouth; and though he didn't extend his tongue, a few snowflakes drifted in all the same, an unfamiliar sensation for him as well. After a moment Leonardo mimicked his father's pose, as Splinter had known he would, and Splinter held his smile—and as the storm built up around them, a moment of silence and wonder for a child quickly losing his childishness, Splinter decided he was glad that Leonardo had been the first to experience snow.

_End Chapter 11_


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: This chapter is long because I'm trying to get through Leonardo's section, which is taking longer than I thought. I think this is the second to last one, though.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

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_Leonardo stared at his father as Splinter opened his mouth; and though he didn't extend his tongue, a few snowflakes drifted in all the same, an unfamiliar sensation for him as well. After a moment Leonardo mimicked his father's pose, as Splinter had known he would, and Splinter held his smile—and as the storm built up around them, a moment of silence and wonder for a child quickly losing his childishness, Splinter decided he was glad that Leonardo had been the first to experience snow._

.x.

There was something odd about the living room.

Splinter could feel the strangeness the moment he returned home from his necessary trip to the surface. Well, not the very first moment. The first moment Splinter had been distracted by his soaking overcoat and the grocery bags going to pieces in his arms, souvenirs from his rainy trip to the top of the world and the slightly fuller sewers through which he had been obliged to return. The first moment, Splinter had done nothing more than reach out with his senses, in search of four little heartbeats—a skill he had acquired as a martial artist but which had definitely sharpened since his transition to parenthood—before leaving his damp bags in the sink and going to clean himself up.

But he was clean now, and dry, and now he noticed. There was something odd about the living room.

It was too quiet, for one thing. Splinter had come home with the expectation that all of his children—except perhaps Michelangelo, by virtue of his short attention span—would still be right where he'd left them, parked in front of the television watching cartoons. But the TV was off, and Splinter heard no voices coming from the room where his sons spent the majority of their time—there was nothing, in fact, but a kind of dull shuffling, which was the reason Splinter had poked his head into the room in the first place, rather than simply assuming his children were elsewhere.

At first, nothing seemed out of place to the old rat. This impression changed as he moved far enough into the room to take in the whole space. It was then that he noticed the tablecloth draped over the length of his side table, shielding its legs from prying eyes. Of course, there was no shielding the little green legs protruding from the white cloth.

Splinter shook his head. Then he dropped to his knees and lifted one corner of the tablecloth, revealing three little pairs of eyes blinking out at him and the influx of light.

Splinter blinked back. Three?

"Sensei, you're back!" Donatello cried, scooting toward his father on his ecstatic stomach. He didn't make it farther than an inch, however, before Michelangelo put a hand on his arm, holding his younger brother back as a serious expression overtook his face.

"Hold it, Donny. This could be a trap."

Splinter felt his eyebrows lifting into his forehead. "A trap?" he asked.

Michelangelo nodded. "You could be an imposter. Like in all the spy movies."

Raphael, who as usual seemed to be half disdainful and half taken in by Michelangelo's flights of fancy, gave Michelangelo a sound smack to the back of the head, though Splinter was not blind to the way his eldest's gaze slid a little more carefully over his face. "Yer bein' stupid, Mikey," he said. "Leo doesn't look anything like Master Splinter."

Splinter noticed the name of his absent child, wondering again why only Leonardo was not under the table with his brothers—but he had no chance to ask, because Michelangelo had jumped on Raphael's response, his mouth running away with him as it often did.

"You know, Raph, they never do. But spies always trick everybody all the same—like that zero guy."

"Zero guy?" Splinter asked, Michelangelo's cheerful energy warming what little of the rain's cold had lingered with him.

The young turtle nodded. "Yeah, Sensei. The zero guy. Zero zero seven. His name's too long, though, so he's just zero guy."

"He's not zero guy. He's seven guy," Donatello insisted, turning plaintive eyes on his father. "I tell Mikey over and over, Sensei, but he's not listening. Zero and zero and seven is seven, not zero. Right, Master Splinter?"

Splinter's lips, already inching upward over Michelangelo's misunderstanding of James Bond, tilted into a smile at the question, pleased as usual by Donatello's preternatural intelligence. "That is right, my son," he replied. "But why—"

"See?" Donatello interrupted, turning back to Michelangelo. "I told you. It's seven guy."

Michelangelo shrugged. "Too late. He'll be zero guy forever now."

"What?" Donatello cried. "That's not fair!"

"Children," Splinter soothed, leaning forward to rest a hand on Donatello's irate head. "I am certain Mister Double-O-Seven would not mind having many names." That had been the point, if Splinter remembered correctly. The old rat chose to press on before any little voices could prevent his inquiry again. "But what does he have to do with Leonardo?"

"Oh, that." Michelangelo scratched his elbow, bumping against the table leg in their cramped hideout. "Leo's gonna try to sneak in here, prob'ly, so he might be using spy moves like zero guy to pretend he's you, and then we wouldn't know."

Michelangelo had an amazing ability, Splinter realized not for the first time, to answer a question without making the processes of his unpredictable little mind any clearer. It seemed he wasn't going to get any more of an answer out of his next to youngest at the moment, however, because Raphael had chosen to start a squabble again.

"That's stupid, Mikey. Leo's not a spy."

"No—even worse, he's a ninja," Michelangelo said, his eyes getting wider as excitement overtook his face. "So he's gotta be like six thousand times better at it than a spy!" As he spoke, Michelangelo threw his hands up for emphasis, yelping as they hit the top of the table.

Raphael rolled his eyes, nudging Michelangelo in the ribs. "Dummy."

"So how do we know if it's Leo or not?" Donatello asked, looking somewhat warily now at the face he had trusted implicitly before. Raphael snorted.

"It's not. Mikey's just a dunce."

"I wish, Raph," Michelangelo said with a sigh. "Too bad you got to be the dunce for life from day one, huh?"

"You wanna say that again, buckle beak?"

"Why?" Michelangelo teased. "Didn't get it the first time? Maybe I should use smaller words."

"Why I oughta—"

"Guys, this is serious," Donatello cut in, too easily caught up in his brothers' nonsense as usual. "How're we gonna tell?"

Splinter wondered, a little bemused, what his second son had done to prompt such concern over his presence from brothers who, with the exception of Raphael, were generally only too eager to play with him, when Leonardo wanted to play at all. He sensed he would get no satisfactory answers from the three young turtles until they were certain of his identity, however, and it didn't sound as though Leonardo were in any immediate trouble—so he didn't ask, only waiting quietly as they decided what to do with him.

"Well, let's ask him something nobody else'd know," Raphael suggested, propping his chin up on two impatient hands.

Michelangelo straightened, bumping his head against the table again as he snapped his fingers. "I got the perfect thing! Okay, Sensei—what'd you say in your sleep yesterday, when you were taking an afternoon nap?"

Splinter was relatively sure he didn't talk in his sleep, and also relatively sure Michelangelo hadn't thought his question through carefully enough before asking it. Raphael seemed to think the same thing—at least, that was the impression Splinter got from the smack he delivered to the back of Michelangelo's head.

"Do not hit your brother, Raphael," Splinter said mildly, expecting no obedience whatsoever.

"You dork," Raphael grunted, ignoring his father entirely and glaring at Michelangelo with eyes that sometimes seemed to have been born angry. "How's he gonna know, if he was asleep? Nobody'd know that!"

"Leo would," Michelangelo replied, apparently completely unfazed by the blow to the head. "'Cause he was there, saying he was gonna tattle about me sneaking into your room to get my slingshot back. The one Sensei put in time out 'cause I flicked a quarter into Donny's eye accidentally." Donatello frowned and Michelangelo pushed on, oblivious to his younger brother's displeasure. "He was there when you started talking, too. So he'd know."

There was a moment of silence as Michelangelo's brothers, and his father as well, struggled to accept that Michelangelo had actually come up with a remarkably clever question, with a far greater chance of catching an imposter than it had originally seemed. Splinter blinked a little at the display of true ninja strategy from his next to youngest—then Raphael shook his head, a scowl falling onto his young face.

"This is stupid, Mikey. It doesn't prove anything. We need a better question."

"Let's just ask him the password," Donatello said, seeming to grow tired of his brothers' constant bickering. Again Splinter wondered at the gathering under the table, and at Leonardo's absence. Shouldn't Donatello have been much more eager to play with his gentle older brother instead of these two notorious troublemakers?

"Well, okay," Michelangelo gave in with a sigh, drumming his fingers against the floor. "What's the password, Sensei?"

Splinter looked around at them for a moment, considering Michelangelo's bored expression and the pride Raphael couldn't keep off of his face. "Pizza," he said at last.

Michelangelo snickered, not looking the least bit surprised, but Raphael's expression morphed at once into a portrait of surprise, his mouth hanging open. "How'd you know?" the little turtle demanded, his astonishment quickly morphing into annoyance. "I thought that was a great password."

"Yeah, that was the problem right there, Raph," Michelangelo told him. "You _thought_."

Splinter decided to intervene before that got out of hand. "It is good to be cautious, my sons. Now that you have ascertained my identity, however, I would like to know what you are doing."

Raphael was still scowling at Michelangelo, but he followed his father's lead for once. "You gotta come in first," Raphael told him firmly, "so no secrets get out."

Splinter glanced at the low ceiling of the table and refrained from shaking his head, choosing instead to humor Raphael as best he could by lying down on his stomach and sticking his head under the tablecloth. As he found as comfortable a position as his old bones could manage, Donatello gave him a little smile.

"I'm glad you're the real one," he said, almost in a whisper.

Splinter smiled. "As am I, my son. Although I am a bit confused as to what you are all doing here."

"Welcome to our clubhouse!" Michelangelo exclaimed, throwing exuberant hands to the side and smacking both of his brothers in the face. Raphael elbowed him back.

"Shell for brains."

"And why is Leonardo not playing in your clubhouse?" Splinter asked.

Immediately his children lost their smiles. "'Cause he's not invited," Raphael grumbled.

"Yeah, Sensei. Can't you read?" Michelangelo reached behind him then and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper with a few mismatched words in childish handwriting and a drawing of a bulbous turtle—masked blue, Splinter noticed—with a great X scratched across him.

"See?" Michelangelo continued, shaking the sign. "I did the picture and Donny did the words. We're the brains of the operation."

"Hey," Raphael snapped.

The words, to Splinter's eyes, read NO LiOS ALAOb, replete with the backwards 'd' that he had come to recognize as Donatello's handiwork. The old rat raised an eyebrow.

"No Leos Allowed?" he guessed, earning a nod from Michelangelo.

"Yeah. Just in case there's more than one of him."

That made Splinter blink. "More than one?"

"Yeah!" Michelangelo grinned. "I saw this ninja on TV the other day, and he could make like ten of him. Maybe Leo can, too."

Splinter chose not to ask what he'd been watching. "And why do you not want Leonardo in here?"

"Because he's a tattletale!" Raphael growled.

"More like a tattle-turtle," Michelangelo chimed in.

Splinter blinked. "A tattle… turtle?"

"Yeah! He goes running to tell on us every time we're doing something fun, or did something fun, or are gonna do something fun," Michelangelo said, oblivious to the warning looks his brothers were giving him. "He's got fun on lockdown, Sensei!"

Splinter fought down a smile. "Is that so?"

Michelangelo nodded. "Sure is. Like last week, he told on Donny, that he was just faking sick so he didn't have to do training."

"Mikey," Donatello hissed.

"And then the week before that, he told on Raph for sneaking ice cream before dinner."

"Mikey," Raphael warned.

"And just yesterday, he followed me to your room and then told how I was trying to get my slingshot back," Michelangelo finished, nodding to himself.

"Mikey," Donatello whispered, his tone rising in urgency.

"What?" Michelangelo wanted to know. "All that stuff's already happened."

"Still."

Splinter did what he could to suppress his smile. "I see."

"And just today," Michelangelo continued, apparently blind to Raphael and Donatello's draining faces, "Leo was getting all in our faces when we were trying to—"

An elbow to the ribs interrupted the little turtle before he got to the most interesting part of his sentence.

"Would you shut up already?" Raphael growled.

"Okay, sheesh." Michelangelo rubbed his side with an apathetic hand. "Bottom line is, Sensei, Leo's just bad news."

"Because he is a… tattletale," Splinter finished, earning a nod from each of his children. The old rat shook his head. "My sons, are you not afraid that you will hurt Leonardo's feelings, excluding him as you are?"

"It's okay, Sensei," Michelangelo assured him. "Leo doesn't have any feelings. He's made out of rock. Or like, soap maybe."

Donatello wrinkled his nose. "You mean he's slippery?"

"No. I mean if you get all covered in ishy-squishy mud he makes you wash it off, and you always lose him in the bathtub," Michelangelo said. "And Raph used to eat him."

"I did not!"

"Children," Splinter sighed, wondering how many times a day that particular mollification passed his lips. The three little turtles stopped arguing for a moment as Michelangelo turned back to their father.

"Look, Sensei. No offense to Leo. He's a great guy. Well, a pretty okay guy. It's just hard to plot doom and destruction—I mean, fun stuff—when he's shooting down every good idea you have."

"So you will be performing your mischief under here from now on?" Splinter asked, deciding to himself that there wasn't that much trouble even Michelangelo and Raphael could get up to under the side table.

Michelangelo grinned. "Just try and stop us!" Then the young turtle crawled forward and put a hand against his master's forehead, pushing Splinter back with his diminutive strength. "You're gonna have to go now, though—we need to come up with a new password, and even though I made an exception this time, you really can't be coming in here a lot. That'd be trouble."

The whole thing was bound to be trouble, Splinter decided. He also decided to have another talk with his children about inclusion and being nice to each other in the near future. But he wanted to talk to Leonardo first, and to see what his second son had made of his exile from the haphazard clubhouse. And to figure out where Leonardo had gotten off to, while all of this was happening.

The last of these curiosities was answered as soon as Splinter removed his head from the shelter of the tablecloth; climbing to his knees, he turned back to see Leonardo standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his customarily serious face perhaps a little more drawn than usual.

Splinter blinked, getting to his feet and moving toward the last of his children as a chorus of little voices began beneath the tablecloth. "Leonardo. There you are."

"Ah! Leo alert!" Michelangelo cried from under the table. "Batten the hatches!"

"Shut up. He'll hear you," Raphael grumbled.

Leonardo gave no indication of having heard any of them, only standing in his place and regarding his father with a solemn frown. A moment passed in silence before the little turtle shifted his feet. "Did you join their club, too, Sensei?" Leonardo asked at last, the stiff line of his shoulders suggesting that he was prepared for the answer to be yes, even if that weren't his first choice.

"Their club?" Splinter repeated.

"Their No Leos club," Leonardo expanded, looking perhaps a touch more put out at his own words.

Splinter felt a little smile slip onto his face. "No, of course not, Leonardo."

Leonardo crossed his arms over his chest. "Then why were you in there?"

Splinter was almost certain that was a phrase Leonardo had picked up from him, the kind he might use if he caught Michelangelo and Raphael rooting the sweets cabinet. The old rat resisted the urge to chuckle. Instead he moved forward to lay a hand against Leonardo's shell, and then led his next to eldest into the kitchen, his voice warm with his knowing smile.

"Come, my son. I require help putting away the groceries."

"Okay," Leonardo mumbled, though Splinter could tell from his voice that this was one of those times when Leonardo was less genuinely interested in helping than feeling obligated to do so. All the same the little turtle followed him over to the sink, where the fragments of wet paper bag were beginning to lose their hold on Splinter's supplies—and together, in silence, father and son put them away for a minute or two before Splinter spoke again.

"My son, do you know why your brothers do not want you to be a part of their club?"

"Because I always tell when they're doing something wrong," Leonardo answered, pushing a carton of milk perhaps a little too forcefully into the refrigerator. "But don't worry, Sensei. I don't care. I'm not going to stop telling when they do bad things just to get in their club. I don't need to be in it at all."

Splinter paused in his chore of peeling paper scraps away from the packaged carrots to look over at Leonardo, his expression resolute as he slipped apples one by one into the refrigerator. Then he smiled. In spite of how many demonstrations he had been given, it was still startling to Splinter how steadfast, how dedicated Leonardo had become to living with high morals at such a young age.

Splinter had always supported an understanding of right and wrong in his children—for all the good that occasionally seemed to do him with Raphael or Michelangelo—but it was encouraging to see that Leonardo, at least, had truly taken his words to heart. No, more than that: Leonardo had engraved them into his mind where he would never forget them, and even though his childish temperament could not yet keep up with the standards he set for himself, Splinter was very proud of him for trying.

It was selfish, he knew—a little bit at least. But he found himself hoping, in moments like this, that he had been something of an example for Leonardo in choosing to pursue this path. It was the kind of example he aspired to set.

This time, however, the path might need a little redirecting.

"You know, Leonardo, you might consider _not_ telling me every time one of your brothers does something wrong."

Leonardo looked back at him in surprise. "Huh?"

"If they have done something wrong, you do not necessarily have to bring that to me," Splinter repeated, smiling at his second son.

Leonardo's eyes became very wide, the expression on his face one that Splinter might have expected on the face of a person whose entire worldview was being shattered before their eyes.

"You mean… it's okay for them to do bad things?" Leonardo asked, his voice heavy with disbelief. "It's okay for them to get away with it?"

Splinter chuckled. "Certainly not. I only meant that, next time, you might tell them that they are doing wrong themselves. I may not always be on hand to prevent your brothers from doing things they should not—perhaps it would be best if you could help them understand their errors on your own."

Leonardo bit his lip. "But Sensei…"

Splinter handed him the orange juice, turning back to his wilting groceries. "If that were the case, would they not be more likely to take you along if they were ever truly up to no good? If you are with them, you can help protect them from their follies; if you rely on my interference, you cannot. It would be a great responsibility, Leonardo. Do you think you could undertake it?"

Leonardo didn't say anything immediately, looking up at his father with a thoughtful stare. Splinter could see words like 'responsibility' and 'protection' spinning behind his second son's eyes—but he didn't get the chance to hear what Leonardo made of them, because at that moment a crash from the other room declared that Michelangelo and Raphael could, in fact, get up to no good with nothing but a table for fodder.

"Look out! Geronimo! It's coming down!"

Splinter and Leonardo abandoned the groceries to the sink and raced for the living room, where the sight of the overturned table and three scattered, shell-shocked turtles met their eyes. Michelangelo, who seemed to have gotten clear of the falling table but only just, wriggled feet-first out from under the tablecloth and shook himself, staring up at his master with unrepentant eyes.

"Oh, man. Last time I invite Raph the rampaging rhino under the folding table."

Leonardo looked up at Splinter for a moment, as though judging whether his father was going to take the disturbers of the peace in hand. Splinter held his tongue. Then he held his smile as Leonardo strode through the newborn chaos of the living room to smack Michelangelo on the back of the head, already well on his way through a lecture Splinter recognized only too well.

"You guys are no end of trouble. What were you thinking, Mikey? Somebody coulda got hurt…"

As Splinter's next to eldest duly chastised his alternately sheepish and rebellious brothers, the old rat leaned back against the doorway with a smile. It was the dawn of a very bossy period in Leonardo's life, he knew, just by watching him now—but that was all right, Splinter thought. Leonardo could start this way, taking his brothers in hand for their little mistakes. Someday, he hoped, the little turtle would be ready to do more than that: to lead his brothers wisely and well wherever they went, whatever the world might throw at them.

.x.

And Leonardo had led them well, as well as he knew how from their first solo excursions through the sewers (often against approval) to the missions and adventures that seemed now to constitute the majority of his sons' days. Splinter was very proud of him for that, and for the lean toward leadership he had already been showing at such a young age. The only downside of the arrangement, as far as Splinter could see, was that giving Leonardo his brothers' reins had meant the little turtle didn't bother to inform his father on everything the three troublemakers were up to—and sometimes, Splinter thought he really would rather have known. But that was such a slight inconvenience that it only made him smile, here in the shell of a broken room with the fragments of a young life all around him.

Splinter bent to trace his claws over Leonardo's drawings, following from one page to the next the paper-faint lines of a faltering crayon. There was such a contrast here, between the vision in his mind of young Leonardo chasing his brothers down the path to virtue and the hesitation that made his pictures almost invisible. Together, Splinter thought, they spoke to why he had always considered Leonardo as his next to eldest. There was a determination in him, and an impulse to protect those precious to him, that spoke so clearly of an older child—but at the same time, there was no denying that Leonardo's childhood eyes had always been searching for a hero, someone to emulate so that the decisions he didn't yet understand how to make would come a little easier.

Splinter knew he had been that hero, for a little while. Perhaps he still was, in some sense. Part of him found that very flattering and the rest was a bit worried that he wasn't a good enough example—and always had worried that, in the days when Leonardo used to look up at him with all the solemn intensity his childish face could manage. There had been times, when Leonardo was very young, when Splinter worried that his second son was getting lost in the shuffle, not being as uniquely demanding as Michelangelo or Raphael or even brilliant Donatello. But somehow, Leonardo had always found a way to reassure his father that he was getting everything he needed, and that he was well on his way down the path his soul had chosen.

.x.

"What are we doing here, Master Splinter?" Michelangelo asked, reaching up to tug at the mask that had been turned into a blindfold over his young, curious eyes. Splinter gave him a sharp rap on the back of the hand with his knuckles.

"Do not bother that, Michelangelo. It will be difficult for you to perform blindfold training without a blindfold, would you agree?"

"Nope. I think that'd make it pretty easy," Michelangelo answered, his grin cheeky as usual as Splinter pushed a padded _bo_ staff into his hands. The old rat shook his head. Then he moved on to the next of his children, positioning them carefully—but not symmetrically—across the dojo floor, which had been covered with mats and filled with gentle obstacles for greater difficulty.

"I don't want to do this," Donatello told him as Splinter adjusted his blindfold, not the first time he had lodged that particular complaint. "I don't like not being able to see."

"When you cannot see, you must simply tap into your other senses, my son," Splinter said, handing over another staff. "As a ninja, one cannot predict the conditions of a battle. You must be prepared for many situations."

"But we practice blindfolded all the time," Raphael put in, swinging his staff experimentally and wincing as he hit a stack of boxes invisible to his eyes. "Why're we doing it special?"

"Because although we practice blindfolded all the time, it is a rare day indeed when you take it seriously, Raphael," Splinter replied. "I am hoping that this practice battle will remind you all how important it is to complete our exercises to the best of your ability."

"Oh, don't be so hard on Raph, Sensei," Michelangelo called. "He probably is giving it all he's got."

"The second we get the go-ahead, Mikey…" Raphael growled.

Of all of his children, only Leonardo stood quietly waiting for the exercise to begin. That was not particularly surprising to Splinter. He was a little surprised, however, to see that Leonardo had his head tipped to one side, as though he were listening very carefully to his brothers' eternal racket. Splinter stepped around his simple obstacles and bent to hand Leonardo his _bo_, keeping his voice low as he sent a few words along with the weapon.

"What are you listening to, Leonardo?"

Leonardo's forehead furrowed in concentration. "There's a box between me and Mikey. His voice sounds different than Donny's. I'm trying to figure out where I am in the room."

Splinter smiled at that, nodding although the motion would be lost on Leonardo. His sons had been allowed to see the dojo's setup before being blindfolded, so keeping track of their positions was something they might all have been trying—though none of them were, he knew, except Leonardo.

"Very good, my son." Then he stepped out from behind the boxes and moved to one side of the room, clearing his throat in a vague attempt to get Raphael and Michelangelo's attention. "We are going to begin now. As you all remember, there are two rules: you may not remove your blindfold and you may not leave the room. And you may not take your blindfold halfway off," he added, noticing Michelangelo's hand already itching toward his bandana.

"What about just partway off?" Michelangelo asked.

"Anyone breaking what I consider to be the rules will be responsible for the dishes until the end of the week," Splinter said. "Does that answer your question, Michelangelo?"

The little turtle grinned. "Close enough. So that's all? No tricky mission objectives or anything? No break everything in fifteen seconds?"

"What are you on?" Raphael grumbled to himself.

"Wait," Donatello cut in. "There's no rules about hitting people?"

"This is a fight, Donatello," Splinter reminded him. "You are meant to hit each other. Do not be concerned. Your weapons are padded."

"They could still hurt," the youngest turtle whined.

Raphael swung his staff in a circle, hitting the boxes again. "You're such a baby, Donny. Can we get this over with already?"

Splinter rubbed a hand across his temples. Then he waved an invisible hand in the four combatants' direction. "Begin."

Splinter was immediately impressed by two facets of his children's performance: Leonardo feeling out his surroundings and then jumping soundlessly on top of a pair of boxes, and Michelangelo closing his mouth. Leonardo's seemed to be a wise tactical choice—as for Michelangelo, it was just always impressive when his mouth stopped moving.

Splinter was not as inspired by Donatello's stubborn, unhappy refusal to move from his starting spot, or the way Raphael immediately began knocking into the boxes around him, trying to get to where he'd last heard Michelangelo's voice. But as the latter was probably an unfixable problem, Splinter chose to concentrate on the former for now.

"Donatello. I suggest you keep moving—the others probably have some idea where you are."

"How am I supposed to move when I can't see?" Donatello wailed, hugging his staff to his chest. "This is nothing like blindfold training, Sensei. This is way scarier. I don't want to do this. I don't wanna!"

"Donatello. I suggest you stop speaking—you will alert your brothers to your position," Splinter reminded him—and the little turtle clammed up, though his lower lip was trembling. One hesitant foot in front of the other, he started to move, his hands outstretched as he concentrated on nothing but avoiding Splinter's soft obstacles.

His movement came too late, however—Leonardo had already noted his position, and he was moving easily from box to box, using his staff to find the top of each one before he jumped. At last the young turtle descended from the high road entirely, landing right in front of Donatello with hardly a sound. Donatello tensed halfway through his steps.

"Sensei?" he called, forgetting his master's call for silence. "I don't like this. Please let us stop. This isn't fun at all—"

Without hitting any of the boxes behind him, Leonardo swung his staff forward into a leg sweep, and Donatello, who had not even known he was there, collapsed as much from fear as from the impact. The youngest turtle crumpled to his knees and dropped his staff, and then he started to cry, sending Splinter into the ring at once as Leonardo took a step back.

"Raph, are you picking on Donny again?" Michelangelo's voice called from somewhere amid the boxes.

"Why do you always think it's me, huh?" Raphael called back, using his staff now to navigate the scattered boxes.

"That was Leo? Scandalous!" Michelangelo gasped, though there was no ignoring the undercurrent of laughter that floated through his words.

Leonardo was shifting his feet. "I didn't mean to hurt him, Sensei," he said as soon as Splinter's soft steps drew even with his bawling child. Splinter sighed, shaking his head at his blindfolded son.

"You did not hurt him, Leonardo. He was only a little scared."

"I was a lot scared!" Donatello cried, scrambling to his feet and throwing himself into his father's robe. "Leo's mean and I don't like this game!"

"Yes, I can see that," Splinter said, leading his youngest back toward the sidelines. "Come, Donatello. We will leave your brothers to it for now." He turned Donatello's bandana around so he could see again, and it seemed to do a great deal to stop his tears, in spite of the rug burns that had been inevitable on his knees.

"I don't want to play anymore," he told his master fiercely.

"No. You are out, my son," Splinter said, patting Donatello's shell. "Let us simply watch your brothers for the moment."

Donatello nodded, if a little tearfully, and together they watched as Leonardo, his face still set in a worried frown, shook himself and headed back into the game. He didn't strike out for his brothers at once, however—he must have been aiming for a different location, because Michelangelo was impossible to miss.

"And another one bites the dust!" Michelangelo sang out at the top of his lungs.

"There you are," Raphael muttered. Then his inborn strength came in handy as he burst through a whole stack of boxes and appeared in Michelangelo's aisle, turning his head from side to side as though it would make a difference. "Now where are you, ya pest?"

"Definitely not this way," Michelangelo hollered, ducking around a corner in the boxes. Raphael charged toward his voice and crashed into the wall of boxes that had been waiting behind him, shaking the impact from his head against peals of Michelangelo's laughter. "Gee, Raph. You're about as sneaky as a rampaging bull. Some ninja you are."

"I'm gonna knock your head off your shoulders," Raphael threatened, doing his best to follow Michelangelo's flitting voice.

"Yeah, I bet all the bulls say that, too," Michelangelo told him, grinning even though he couldn't see his incensed brother as they entered an open area at the center of the dojo and Raphael knocked into the last stack of boxes. "Hey, I guess if you're the bull, that makes me the matador. Cool!"

"The mata-what?"

"The matador. The guy who fights the bull. You know he always wins in the end?"

"We'll see about that!" Raphael challenged, throwing his staff forward. For a moment Splinter thought the blow was going to land, because Michelangelo had been too busy laughing at his brother to keep out of the way of the weapon—but at the last instant, with the kind of bizarre luck Splinter had come to expect from his next to youngest child, Michelangelo tripped over a tiny obstacle that had snuck onto the dojo floor and tumbled onto his back, so that the _bo_ staff slid right over his head.

"Whoa!" Michelangelo lay on the floor for a second in surprise, and then he rolled to one side, inadvertently dodging Raphael's downward thrust. "Who brought superhero clothespin-guy into the dojo? Oh, wait—guess that must have been me. Come on, little guy—we're on the run from a rampaging bull!"

"Get back here!" Raphael roared, striking at Michelangelo with a swing that only missed because Michelangelo had ducked, at that exact moment, to grab his makeshift superhero from the floor. Michelangelo laughed.

"Whoo—that was close, Raph. You almost took my head off with that one. Well, except for the part where I expertly dodged, like the super ninja master I am. Isn't that right, superhero-guy?"

"How do you do that?" Raphael demanded, swinging again and again and hitting air every time.

"Gee, is it my talent or is it my brain? It's so hard to decide," Michelangelo chirped, stumbling over the corner of a box and thus avoiding the _bo_ staff that sailed right past his ear.

From his position on the sidelines, Splinter shook his head. Raphael should not have been attacking his brother with such fervor—but Raphael was mad at Michelangelo, and whenever he was mad at Michelangelo he lost all of his common sense. What Splinter never could figure out was whether Michelangelo's incredible defense in a situation like this was the result of hidden talents that simply hadn't come with a corresponding measure of grace, or whether he was really just that lucky.

"You're missing again, aren't you, Raph?" Michelangelo teased, skipping out of his brother's range with every little jibe. "You always miss when you get angry. You've gotta get a rein on that temper. Then again, I guess that's not totally your fault. All bulls get mad when they see red."

"Where are you?" Raphael shouted, abandoning his weapon to lunge with open hands.

"I'm right here," Michelangelo said. "Oops, missed me again. Missed me again. Hey, three strikes and you're out, Raph—" Then Michelangelo's taunt was cut short as one more backward skip slammed him into a wall of boxes, and the little turtle yelped, feeling the cardboard behind him in search of an opening. "Sheesh, who put these here? I didn't think there were any boxes on this side of the room—"

"Gotcha!" Raphael yelled.

And he should have. Michelangelo hadn't been keeping track of his location, and he had never been very adept at footwork. But somehow that didn't stop him from executing a perfect back flip onto the top of the boxes behind him, and then leaping off again before Raphael plowed into the stack, bringing them all down on his head. Splinter winced and hurried to help his eldest out of the cardboard tangle and Michelangelo paused with his head tilted to the side, listening to Raphael's groans and grumbles for a moment before a grin came over his face.

"Oh, yeah! And another bull goes down to Mikey the Matador! Gimme five, superhero-guy!"

"I'm not out yet," Raphael muttered, pushing Splinter's hands away as he tried to scramble after Michelangelo's voice. Splinter shook his head.

"You are indeed, my son. We will leave it to Leonardo and Michelangelo now. Come."

Raphael growled but gradually complied, turning his mask around with one frustrated hand so he could give Michelangelo a solid, if unnoticed, glare. "Cream him, Leo!" he shouted from the sidelines, plopping down cross-legged next to Donatello, and Splinter raised an eyebrow—but he wasn't exactly surprised, because he had noticed in the past that except for Donatello, no one was happy when Michelangelo won.

Leonardo did not reply to his brother's charge. In fact, Splinter had lost track of him in the chaos of Michelangelo and Raphael's destructive rampage. It took him a minute to find the small green and blue form, kneeling carefully at the corner of a box intersection, waiting with bated staff for Michelangelo—Michelangelo who was moving toward him at that very moment, all of his cautious silence thrown aside as he swung his clothespin figure back and forth in one hand.

"Leonardo… Leonardo…" Michelangelo called in a soft voice, as though trying to lure the other turtle out of hiding. "Come on, Leo. Where'd you go?"

Leonardo waited until the last moment, and then he swung for Michelangelo's feet, a perfect sweep that should have swept Michelangelo to the ground. Would have, no doubt, had Raphael's abandoned staff not tripped Michelangelo at the exact same moment. The little turtle lost his footing and staggered to get it back—and in his stagger, he stepped right over the staff aiming for his ankles, a dodge as unintentional as the antics that had driven Raphael so crazy. Leonardo did not lose his temper and charge, but Michelangelo must have noticed something all the same, because he hopped back a step and set his staff in front of him, craning his neck uselessly from side to side.

"Whoa—weapon going by at three o'clock. That you, Leo?"

"You know, Mikey, if I were an enemy, there's no way I'd answer when you asked that," Leonardo said, sliding forward around the corner of the box and striking sideways at his brother. Michelangelo did not get hit, but the blows against his own staff drove him backward, his footing slipping right and left between the towers of boxes.

"Okay, T! T, Leo!" Leonardo stepped back slowly, his staff still held defensively in front of him, and Michelangelo felt around until he found the top of a box, depositing his clothespin toy there with a sympathetic pat. "Sorry, superhero-guy. But now that it's down to me and Leo, I'm going to have to use both my hands. Leo's not as easy to get as that rampaging bull over there."

"I heard that!" Raphael yelled.

"What fun would it be if you didn't hear it?" Michelangelo wanted to know. Then he ducked hard, avoiding rather than countering his brother's disarm. "Hey! You'd attack me while I was getting the civilians to safety?"

"It's a toy, Mikey," Leonardo replied, readjusting his stance by the sound of Michelangelo's voice alone. "Come on—let's do this."

"Why do you always have to get all into stuff?" Michelangelo asked, leaping back a step to keep up with Leonardo's advance. "All right, you asked for it. Time for Mikey on serious mode!"

Splinter was skeptical that his next to youngest had a serious mode. But in spite of his expectations, Michelangelo's fighting improved remarkably for the next few minutes, a fact that was simultaneously impressive and irritating considering that Michelangelo paid the least attention of all during their regular blindfold training. Nonetheless he seemed to have gotten control of his usually erratic attacks and blocks, and to be moving with strange dexterity among the obstacles he had clearly had no knowledge of five minutes before. He even seemed to have found a use for his perpetually open mouth.

"And Mikey goes in for the perfect overhead strike!" Michelangelo said, narrating his own attack pattern. And indeed he did throw an overhead strike—but at the same moment, the little turtle slipped into the full splits, so that Leonardo's counterstrike to his weapon arm went right over his head.

"Oh, wait. Did I forget to mention the absolutely outstanding splits that came with that overhead strike?" Michelangelo asked, his grin almost audible. Leonardo jabbed at his legs again, leaving the bait alone. Michelangelo dodged and found a little frown. "You know, Leo, you're not as fun to fight as Raph."

"Sorry to hear that," Leonardo replied, though he didn't sound sorry at all. Nor did he look sorry as he drove Michelangelo backward, trading staff blows with his younger brother.

"It's not going to be that easy. How 'bout a windmill strike?" Michelangelo said. Leonardo blocked the spinning staff and struck toward the floor, remembering Michelangelo's last fake—but this time Michelangelo had only ducked to the side, and he laughed as Leonardo's weapon echoed against the concrete. "Ha ha! Gotcha again!"

"Go Mikey!" Donatello called, regaining a little of his spirit at last.

"Come on, Leo. Don't lose to somebody like that!" Raphael countered.

Splinter said nothing. He was watching his children spar with a layer of thought lining his forehead, trying to make sense of a few small things. Even with Michelangelo's newfound fighting skills, Leonardo should have been beating him much more easily—Leonardo was the only one who ever took blindfolded training seriously, and Splinter had even worked with him separately on limited-senses sparring, since the young turtle applied himself so well. What was holding him back this time?

"Still two steps ahead of you, bro—you're gonna have to be faster than that to catch me!"

"Watch your feet, Mikey. Raph's staff is around here somewhere."

It took Splinter another fleeting moment to realize that the only thing holding Leonardo back was Leonardo himself—and then he smiled, because as soon as he'd noticed the pattern it was easy to see that Leonardo was restricting himself to sweeps and disarms, blows that would defeat his opponent but not hit them seriously. It wasn't a rule Splinter had given his sons for this exercise; it seemed to be a task Leonardo had undertaken all on his own, and one that he performed faithfully even as Michelangelo's staff sailed toward his head.

"And the victory blow!"

Leonardo ducked the swing and rolled backward, regaining his feet at once. For a long moment he didn't move, as though he were trying to clear his head before the next assault—then the young turtle leapt to the top of the boxes again, using his staff to test the height of surrounding obstacles. Michelangelo poked his staff into their fighting corridor.

"Hey? Where'd you go, Leo?"

Leonardo didn't answer, at least not with his voice. Instead he lifted his staff and stabbed out across the air—not at Michelangelo beneath him, but at a parallel set of boxes. The collision produced a sharp bang and Michelangelo turned on it at once, striking the boxes with all his might—and then promptly found himself on his back, as Leonardo leapt down from the box behind him and swept his legs clean out from under him.

"Whoa!" Michelangelo flailed a moment on his shell and then managed to roll to one side, peeling his mask up in what Splinter took as a sign of surrender. The little turtle blinked at his older brother. "Where'd you come from?"

Leonardo smiled as he twisted his own bandana around, reaching down to pull Michelangelo to his feet. "Just decided to take the high road for once."

Michelangelo heaved a heavy sigh, a hand pressed to his heart in an image of crushing defeat. "Well, you got me, Leo. The battle is yours. I concede—do what you will with me! Cut off my head! Steal my video games! Take my place as Raph's eternal rival." Then Michelangelo paused, looking up at his brother with his typical thousand-watt smile. "At least I gave you a run for your money, huh?"

If it were Raphael, Splinter knew he couldn't have kept his mouth shut. But Leonardo just smiled, tapping his fist against Michelangelo's shoulder. "Yep. You sure did, Mikey."

"Hey, nice one, Leo," Raphael called, leading his father and brother toward the last of the combatants. "About time somebody knocked some sense into Mikey."

"Don't you wish it could've been you, Raph?" Michelangelo asked. Then his face lit up in false surprise, accompanied by a hand hitting his palm. "Oh, snap! I forgot. You don't have any!"

"You little scamp!"

And they were off again, dodging between boxes and over the padded staffs that had been abandoned now, one after another, on the dojo floor. Leaving the other three members of their family together in a smiling clump, as Splinter set a hand against Leonardo's shoulder.

"Well done, my son. Although I must remind you, I did not specify the manner of attack for this exercise."

Donatello blinked up at him with uncomprehending eyes. Leonardo just smiled. "Yeah, I know. But you're always careful with us, when we train. I wanted to do it the way you do." Leonardo squared his shoulders a little, looking up at his master with a face full of determination. "When I grow up, I'm going to be just like you, Master Splinter."

Splinter's heart hadn't been so warm in a long, long time.

"Hope you don't expect to be as hairy!" Michelangelo yelled back to them as he vaulted a box.

"Things are about to get hairy for you!" Raphael shouted in response.

Michelangelo and Raphael were running, and Donatello and Leonardo were rolling their eyes—and Splinter stood in the center of it all, warm to the ends of his toes, and smiled at them. Smiled at the declaration of his second son and the timelessness of this moment—smiled at Leonardo's promise and Splinter's own promise to himself, to raise his four vivid children into the promise of a future with days and days like this.

_End Chapter 12_


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Leo's last chapter. Finally.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Michelangelo and Raphael were running, and Donatello and Leonardo were rolling their eyes—and Splinter stood in the center of it all, warm to the ends of his toes, and smiled at them. Smiled at the declaration of his second son and the timelessness of this moment—smiled at Leonardo's promise and Splinter's own promise to himself, to raise his four vivid children into the promise of a future with days and days like this._

.x.

A future that had fulfilled all of his expectations, and more.

Splinter lifted the last of Leonardo's pictures out of the scattered pile and held it up to the light, watching as the shadows made theater of those tiny, faltering crayon lines—tiny, faltering lines toward the perfection Leonardo had always been looking for. Of course it was true that his second son had inherited many of Splinter's own characteristics—his patience and his deep thought, his responsibility and his tranquility. But Splinter did not believe Leonardo had grown up like him. He knew he had grown up even better.

With a sigh for the memories that were so many and so vibrant no coloring book could hold them all, Splinter looked down at the sheaf of pictures in his arms and smiled. Leonardo. A master of discipline and meditation from his first perfected kata. A child who, through his dedication to hard work, had pushed himself beyond the level that Michelangelo's enthusiasm, Raphael's passion or Donatello's intelligence could reach. A soul that faltered from time to time under the burden of Atlas he demanded to carry—and who so very recently had been lost to him, and then returned. He smiled at the image of an unsure child that lay at the base of it all.

But Splinter knew, and the pictures knew, that there was more to Leonardo than this. A warrior who sought justice in all of the conflicts that battle and his brothers brought him. Two helping hands that had so often been there when Splinter thought he could catch nothing more. And a strong, steady pulse in the direction of virtue, who had shown his father, and his brothers, that he could lead them if they would be led—and that in his leadership, he could stand against their faults. Even Raphael's.

.x.

"He's going to fall off a cliff."

"No, he's not. He's gonna get a boulder in the head. He always gets a boulder in the head. Or, like, an anvil."

"I can't watch," Donatello whimpered, and from his place at the kitchen table beating a batch of mashed potatoes Splinter glanced toward the living room, the open door allowing him a clear view of Donatello with both hands pressed over his eyes. On the couch beside him, Raphael elbowed his youngest brother.

"Ya pansy."

"I'm not a pansy," Donatello said, dropping his hands so he could push Raphael's elbow out of his stomach. "I just don't like this show. Why does the coyote always have to get hurt?"

Michelangelo gave a little shrug. "He's Wiley Coyote. It's his job. You wouldn't want to put him out a job, would you, Donny? With the economy like it is?"

There was a moment of silence following this, as Michelangelo's brothers each spared him a glance and Splinter shook his head at the influence of the ABC News story on the job market that appeared to have stuck with Michelangelo since its coverage the day before. On the couch, Donatello shifted a little, slightly off balance after his brother's explanation.

"Well, no, I mean… but still." There was a moment of silence as a sound effect announced the heavy impact of a piano onto the cartoon coyote's head, then Donatello huffed, throwing a hand toward the cheerful screen. "See? He's hurt again. Why do his tricks always hurt him in the end?"

"So you'd rather the road runner got hurt?" Raphael challenged, sticking up, as usual, for the party with whom he identified himself—which was always the winning party, if he could get away with it.

Donatello sunk back into the cushions. "No. I don't want either of them to get hurt."

"That'd be the most boring cartoon ever," Raphael told him, ignoring the pout on Donatello's face. "Nobody would watch that but pansies like you. And maybe Leo."

Against his will, Splinter tensed a little mid-mash, waiting for the barb to draw an argument from his second son, who in all likelihood hadn't been paying enough attention to the cartoon to even be in good spirits. But to his surprise, Leonardo's response wasn't directed at Raphael—it seemed to be directed at no one in particular, or perhaps at the television itself as Leonardo leaned forward in his seat.

"This doesn't make any sense."

Splinter shook his head as he scooped the potatoes into a dish and leaned over to set out his children's plastic plates, recognizing all too well the flat tonality of Leonardo's voice. There was only one kind of discussion that followed a comment like that from his second son—a fact that Michelangelo, too, seemed aware of, if his reply was any indication.

"Again, Leo? Geez—can't you just watch cartoons like a normal turtle?"

"Normal turtles don't watch cartoons," Donatello put in, the edge of his squabble with Raphael coloring his voice. "Normal turtles don't even have TV. I read about them in our animal book and there were no TVs on the whole page."

"No TVs! How do they live?" Michelangelo threw a melodramatic hand against his forehead and then turned to shake Raphael, always his first choice when it came to bothering one of his brothers. "Raph, we've gotta do something. We have to go on a crusade to bring TV to the turtles of the world. What'll they do without the Justice Force? The Home Shopping Network? The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer?"

"Get offa me," Raphael growled, shoving Michelangelo away with a hand to the side of his head. "You're ruining the show."

"But see—right there," Leonardo cut in, directing his brothers' attention back to the screen, and Splinter also looked up in time to see a cactus waver and sink to the ground. "That doesn't make sense. How can a cactus fall asleep?"

"'Cause Wiley sprayed it with sleeping gas," Michelangelo answered in a chirp, the rhythm of his restless feet beating the side of the couch underwriting his words. "Weren't you watching, Leo?"

"Yes," Leonardo protested, a hint of annoyance slipping into his voice. "That's not what I mean. How can a cactus fall asleep? It's not like it was awake before."

"Sure it was." Michelangelo nodded through his smile. "It was standing up, right? Cactuses are just like everybody else—they stand up when they're awake, they lie down when they're asleep. Makes perfect sense. Unless you think cactuses have to sleep standing up."

"No—that's not what I'm saying." Leonardo had straightened in his seat, and Splinter could see that his second son was losing his patience. "Cactuses don't sleep at all, Mikey. They're plants!"

Michelangelo clicked his tongue. "Don't you think you're being a little unfair, Leo? Cactuses get tired just like anybody—they've gotta stand there all day in the sun, and then sometimes they've gotta get blown up or knocked over or sat on by Wiley Coyote. And even though they do all that, you're not going to let them take a nap? That's pretty cold, bro."

"No, but… but that's not what I meant. That doesn't make sense either…" Leonardo tried, struggling to hold onto his train of thought even though Michelangelo, in a signature move, had completely derailed it. Splinter shook his head and cleared his throat.

"Leonardo," he called, drawing four sets of eyes back to him. "I need help setting the table. Will you assist me?"

Leonardo glanced at Michelangelo and then at the TV, and then he pushed himself up off the couch, making for the kitchen with only one backward look. "Sure, Sensei—coming," he said, leaving the confusing cartoon behind.

"Finally," Splinter heard Raphael grumble, his head sinking lower over the back of the couch. "Thought he was never going to shut up. Ruining road runner."

"You know, Raph, this show totally reminds me of me and you," Michelangelo mused, leaning forward to rest his chin on his elbows. "Get it? I'm road runner, 'cause I'm so fast and cool. And you're coyote, 'cause you're too stupid to keep up, and you never catch me anyway."

"Hey!" Raphael yelled, and out of the corner of his eye Splinter watched as they leapt up off the couch, a perfect reflection of the image on the screen as Raphael chased Michelangelo out of sight down the hall. Splinter shook his head, but he let them be, most of his attention focused on the little turtle that had reached his side.

"What'd you need help with, Sensei?"

"Set out the glasses please, Leonardo," Splinter said, placing bread and a bowl of vegetable gravy on the table. Leonardo did as he was asked, moving to the counter and standing on his tiptoes to retrieve the glasses from the upper cabinet. Splinter smiled at him over his shoulder. His sons had grown a lot over the years, he realized—not only in height and dexterity, of course, but in demeanor as well. Then again, Leonardo had always been the first to want to help with chores, and setting the table had been his job for a good long time now—long enough that Splinter still remembered when his second son hadn't been tall enough to access the upper cabinets by himself, not even with the help of a stepping stool.

Watching Leonardo now, as he stretched his arm as far as possible to retrieve the fifth glass, Splinter thought he saw the shadow of a younger turtle lingering beside him, equally dedicated if not equally effective in his quest to be helpful. But the impression was fleeting, and it lost its presence and settled back into the curves of memory as Leonardo grabbed the last glass and turned back to the table, his eyes calm with quiet thought. As he set the last mismatched cup at its place, a flare of laughter erupted from the other room, and Splinter, scooping the potatoes into a bowl, saw Leonardo roll his eyes.

"That's the stupidest show." Splinter raised an eyebrow, and Leonardo, seeming to notice his father's interest in a formerly personal complaint, gave a little shrug. "It doesn't make any sense. All the things they do could never really happen. Cactuses don't sleep," he finished, taking the hard line of reality as usual. Then the young turtle paused. "Right, Sensei?"

Splinter smiled, turning away from Leonardo to pull two cartons of juice out of the refrigerator. "When there are many cactus, they are called cacti, my son. Not cactuses," he said instead of an answer, setting the drinks on the table. Leonardo blinked at him for a moment. Then he smiled a little as well, retrieving the teapot carefully from the stove and setting it in the middle of the table.

"Right. Sorry, Sensei."

Splinter nodded at Leonardo's back. He had no chance to do much more than that, however, before their conversation was interrupted by two green blurs tearing into the kitchen, their headband straps trailing out behind them.

"Beep beep!" Michelangelo yelled out, sprinting forward to put the table between himself and Raphael.

"You can't say that. I'm road runner!" Raphael shouted, chasing Michelangelo once around the table before he skidded to a stop, halted by the gray hand settling onto his shoulder. Raphael looked up at the old rat who seemed to be made of patience as he bypassed his lecture in favor of a sigh, tipping his head toward the living room.

"Settle down, my sons. It is time for dinner. Someone please call Donatello, and everyone else sit down. Michelangelo?"

"Sure thing!" Michelangelo sang out, dashing out of the room. "Beep beep! Donny, time for dinner, beep beep!"

"Stop it!" Raphael stormed, lunging after Michelangelo even as Splinter pushed him down into a chair.

"Sit. That is enough troublemaking for one evening. What kind of juice would you like, Raphael?"

"But _I'm_ the road runner!" Raphael insisted.

Splinter frowned at him. "That was not what I asked. Orange or apple, Raphael?"

When Raphael opened his mouth his eyes were still angry, telling Splinter clearly that an answer to the juice question was not what he'd originally had in mind to say. But the persistent frown on his father's face seemed to help Raphael reconsider, and after a moment he slumped down in his seat, seizing a serving spoon to topple a tremendous pile of mashed potatoes onto his plate.

"Apple," he muttered. Splinter nodded.

"Very well. Leonardo, please have a seat as well. Michelangelo, Donatello?"

The summons was unnecessary. Michelangelo reappeared in the doorway at that moment, pausing only to chirp an abbreviated "beep-beep" in the doorway before he leapt into the chair across the table from Raphael's. Raphael glowered at him and Michelangelo grinned, which earned both of them another roll of Leonardo's eyes as Donatello slid into his seat.

"Juice, Donatello?" Splinter asked.

Donatello pouted. "The cartoon's not over yet." Splinter, who could feel his patience waning with every child that joined him in the kitchen, only sent his youngest a look. Donatello sighed. "Orange juice, please," he corrected, holding up his glass.

"Leonardo?" Splinter continued, filling Donatello's cup.

Leonardo shook his head. "I'll have tea," he said, leaning in to retrieve the teapot only he and Splinter would use for their refreshment. Splinter smiled.

"Michelangelo? What kind of juice would you like?"

"Banana juice!" Michelangelo sang out, pounding his fisted hands and the fork he clutched against the rattling table.

"No such thing," Raphael snapped, taking a malicious bite of potatoes and chewing with slow fury.

"Strawberry juice!"

"That either, Mikey," Donatello said, taking over for his eldest brother as Raphael's mouth was full.

"Blueberry juice!" Michelangelo tried, only pounding harder against the table.

Leonardo shook his head. "Mikey. There's just orange and apple. Don't pretend you don't know."

"Why do we never have juice for any of the good fruits?" Michelangelo wanted to know, the clatter of his dishes interrupted as Splinter reached down and settled a hand over his restless wrists.

"My son, please stop banging. Your brother is right. You may have apple or orange juice. Which would you prefer?"

"I want a soda," Michelangelo chirped, dropping his fork with a clatter to grab the potato serving spoon right out of Donatello's hand.

"Hey!" Donatello cried.

"You may not have a soda," Splinter told him, taking the spoon back and dishing potatoes onto Donatello's plate, then Leonardo's, as he stared Michelangelo down. "Orange or apple, my son?"

"How about an orange… soda!" Michelangelo persisted, grinning shamelessly at his father as he grabbed for the potato spoon, kicking the table leg and rattling the plates. Splinter held it over his head, a restraining hand pressed into his next to youngest's shoulder.

"Very well. Orange juice it is, Michelangelo."

"No!" Michelangelo cried, as the bright liquid cascaded into his glass. "Apple! Apple, Sensei! Apple apple apple apple!"

"All right, all right, Michelangelo," Splinter sighed, giving the little turtle a look as he set the serving spoon back into the potatoes. He shifted the cup of orange juice to his own place and moved to the cabinet to get another one, holding onto his temper with all of his sage-like strength as Michelangelo's voice sang out behind him.

"I'm thirsty, Sensei. Hurry up with my apple juice, okay?"

Splinter felt no need to chastise Leonardo for smacking his younger brother across the back of the head.

"You are all very excitable this evening," Splinter said as he took his place at the table, pouring tea for himself and Leonardo as Michelangelo finished dipping up his share of potatoes. "Let us try to have a quiet rest of the night, shall we?"

Splinter had not truly expected that request to gain him anything—but he hadn't expected it to flop quite as badly as it did, either. The words were barely out of his mouth when Michelangelo, the white-tinged serving spoon still clutched in one excited fist, dropped his head forward and slammed his face into his pile of potatoes, the face plant earning a shriek from Donatello and a gasp from Splinter himself as he jerked Michelangelo up by his headband tails, staring along with the rest of his children at the little turtle's gob-covered face.

"Michelangelo! What are you doing?" Splinter demanded, grabbing his napkin and doing what he could to clean the potatoes from his next to youngest's face.

"But road runner always eats that way, Sensei," Michelangelo told him, twisting his neck as though to escape from his father's startled napkin. "He doesn't use a fork or anything. He just sticks his face in it. I'm road runner, so I've gotta eat like him."

Raphael's eyes widened and then narrowed, and his head swung toward his own plate of potatoes.

"Do not even consider copying your brother," Splinter warned, one gray fist snapping around the straps of Raphael's headband and yanking his eldest back into a firm sitting position. Raphael opened his mouth in sour protest.

"But Mikey—"

"Is now very messy and has made a considerable mess besides," Splinter cut in, holding both of his children back by vice-like grips on their headbands. "I will not have you doing the same. I do not care who is the road runner; you will eat your potatoes with a fork, or you will be washing all of the dishes alone. I say this to you as well, Michelangelo," he cautioned, as the little turtle had begun tugging as though to pull his headband off entirely. "All of them, all by yourself. I am sure not even the road runner would enjoy doing that."

There was silence for a moment after this pronouncement, and then Michelangelo tapped his master's arm, grinning far too brightly for the behavior that had been wearing on Splinter's nerves not a moment before. "You can let go now, Sensei," Michelangelo said, nodding at his potatoes through a smeared white smile. "I'm not gonna do it again. Wouldn't want to take the dishes away from Leo—they're like his reason for living."

Leonardo frowned but did not rise to the bait, minding his manners and his father's frown as Splinter used his usually gentle fingers to flick Michelangelo on the side of the head. "Enough. For the rest of the meal, we shall be practicing our ninja silence. Anyone who breaks the silence without permission will not receive their dessert. Is that clear?"

"We have dessert?" Michelangelo asked, straightening in his seat.

"We will see," Splinter warned him, scooping potatoes at last onto his own plate. "Ninja silence begins now."

Dessert was a potent threat—one Splinter had learned, over the years, to reserve for times when his children were so out of hand that a punishment one step more severe would be taking away the television. It was not a threat he used very often. When he did, the results were immediate and unyielding: absolute silence suffused his dinner table, silence of the quality Splinter hadn't been presented with since bedtime the night before.

Raphael was glaring alternately between his master and Michelangelo, Michelangelo was scooping potatoes into his mouth with a fury that suggested he'd never had a problem with using his fork, Donatello was playing with his food. Leonardo was the only one who seemed content to eat in a manner befitting children of their age. But whatever they were doing, they were all doing it in silence, and as Splinter could think of nothing he wanted more at that moment, he closed his eyes for a heartbeat and let the darkness behind his eyelids soothe his headache.

When he opened them again, nothing had changed, except for his state of mind. With renewed patience Splinter pulled his cup of tea toward him and poured a measure of yellow tea into it, smiling fondly at the sugar bowl that he now had no reason to reach for. There had been a time, when Leonardo was young enough to wish to emulate his master but too young for his tongue to appreciate the subtleties of tea, when Splinter had performed an easy sleight-of-hand whenever mealtime came around, dropping two spoonfuls of sugar behind his teacup with such precision that Leonardo believed he had actually added them to his tea and did the same.

Of course, they were long past that now. Leonardo did not take his tea with sugar anymore, and Splinter never had, and as the other children were not interested in tea there was really no reason for the sugar bowl set out on their table. Still, to Splinter the dinner table never seemed complete without it. Perhaps that was the power of nostalgia.

Splinter smiled to himself. Then he settled back into the silence, content, for the moment, with his thoughts and the image of industrious imitation that had grown into the son across the table from him, by far the quietest eater in the bunch.

Donatello picked mercilessly at his food and Michelangelo and Raphael mouthed words—probably insults—to eat other across the table under the veil of silence, but in spite of his naturally disruptive children the meal came to a close without anyone raising his voice again, at which Splinter was a little impressed, in spite of himself. Except for the occasional clink of silverware on their plastic plates, there was barely a sound at all until Leonardo set down his fork and raised his hand, earning a nod from Splinter.

"I'm finished, Sensei," he said, getting a second nod.

"Very well, my son. You may be excused from the table." The old rat stood and reached over to take Leonardo's dishes, pulling a frown onto his second son's face.

"Sensei—" Leonardo stopped abruptly, his eyes widening a little as he put a hand over his own mouth and then raised his hand again. Splinter only nodded at him to continue, reminding himself that Leonardo needed to be told specifically when rules stopped being enforced. Leonardo pressed on. "Sensei, I can do my dishes. It's fine."

Splinter smiled at that, releasing his hold on Leonardo's dishes with a little nod—not that he had really expected anything else, but Leonardo had enough chore credits racked up to skip dish duty if he wanted to. Then the old rat turned back to Michelangelo, who had stuck up his hand and was waving it furiously. "Michelangelo? Did you have something to say?"

"Leo's a teacher's pet!" Michelangelo sang out, holding up his dishes in victorious hands. "And I want to know if he can do mine, too. Road runners do no dishes." After a moment's pause, the little turtle added, "Beep beep!"

"Hey!" Raphael cried, forgetting the rule of silence in his indignation. "I'm the road runner, shell for brains!"

"Raphael," Splinter admonished. "What did I say about speaking without permission?"

Raphael choked on his tongue, looking up at his father with the horror of any child just realizing how he had jeopardized his right to dessert. But where most children would have sunk back into silence or at least begun to beg, Raphael chose to get angry—and his anger always came with a physical outlet, in this case two irate hands snatching a piece of bread from the central basket and flinging it at Michelangelo.

"This is your fault!" he yelled, angrier still as Michelangelo put his training to good use and dodged the incoming starch missile. Splinter grabbed his hands before he could try the attack again.

"Raphael."

"Oh, come on, Raph. Don't be mad," Michelangelo teased, swinging back and forth in his seat. "Wiley's aim only gets worse when he's mad."

"I'm not Wiley!" Raphael yelled.

Splinter put a hand to his head. "My sons, please…"

"Well, I'm not!" Raphael persisted.

"Raphael. That is quite enough yelling," Splinter told him firmly, and the weight of his stare was finally enough to clap the young turtle's mouth shut. Splinter sent a look around at all of his children, though Donatello only blinked at him and his eyes passed over Leonardo. "This road runner and coyote game has gone far enough. I do not understand why you are so upset about this—but even if you are, that is no excuse for your behavior."

"But it's Mikey's fault!" Raphael broke in, never one to give up on a losing battle. "He's being so annoying that he made me yell, and now I don't get any dessert!"

"That is not why you will have no dessert, Raphael," Splinter replied, losing a little more patience every time his eldest son opened his mouth. "You will have no dessert because instead of calming yourself in the face of your anger, you chose to express your feelings through violence. That is what you will be punished for."

Raphael's jaw dropped open, as though he had been hoping for a withdrawal of the no-dessert punishment. "But Mikey was—"

"Misbehaving," Splinter interrupted, sending Michelangelo a look. "Which is no excuse for the way you handled yourself. You may leave the table if you like; your brothers will have dessert, and then perhaps we will play a game—or perhaps we will all simply go to bed," Splinter added, the last intended as a note of caution against the storm cloud of irritation building on Raphael's forehead.

Raphael refused to quit. "But he—"

"Give it a rest, Raph." Leonardo rose from his seat and pushed his dishes into a stack, taking Michelangelo's with him as well as he headed for the sink. "Stop being obnoxious. Mikey's a pill, but it's your own fault."

"You wanna say that to my face, goody two-shoes?" Raphael shot back, slamming his angry fists down onto the table. One of them would have gone straight into the gravy had his father's quick hands not swept the plastic dish out of harm's way just in time.

Splinter sent his son another look, which Raphael ignored, and gathered the rest of the dishes, noticing as he did so that Donatello had raised a shy hand above the table. "Yes, Donatello. You may speak," he said over his shoulder as he moved to meet Leonardo at the sink. "We are no longer practicing our ninja silence."

Obviously.

"I can split my dessert with Raph," the little turtle offered, glancing over at his brother as Raphael's eyes lit up. Splinter shook his head, moving to the cabinets above the sink and pulling out a brown paper bag even as he answered.

"That is very kind of you. But I cannot allow that. Raphael has misbehaved, and it will not be punishment if he receives dessert after all. Do you understand?"

Donatello bit his lip, but after a moment he nodded, apparently willing to follow his father's commands. Raphael lost his expression to storm clouds again, though he tried to hold them back for the sake of his grumble.

"I'm sorry, Master Splinter."

Splinter did not look over his shoulder to check Raphael's sincerity, his attention focused on the clean plate onto which he slipped three large donuts before returning the fourth to the cabinet. "I am glad to hear that, Raphael," he said after a moment, turning back to the room proper. "Perhaps you will remember that tomorrow, and then you will have dessert."

Raphael's jaw dropped in shock. "Still no dessert? But I'm sorry!"

"You are sorry for having no dessert," Splinter finished, shaking his head. "You are not sorry for throwing bread at Michelangelo, or for misbehaving. As that is why I took away your dessert, I have no reason yet to return it to you."

"But—"

"Are those donuts?" Donatello cut in, his eyes shining as he leaned around Raphael to have a look. Michelangelo jumped out of his seat and raced to Splinter's side.

"Donuts! All road runners love donuts! Gimme gimme gimme—"

"Please stop that, Michelangelo," Splinter said, settling his free hand on top of Michelangelo's head. Then he turned to the only turtle who didn't seem particularly interested in the arrival of the donuts, holding out the plate to his second son.

"Leonardo, you may choose first. Which would you like?"

"Aw, why him?" Michelangelo whined. Splinter raised an eyebrow.

"Because he is doing the dishes."

Leonardo looked at the three donuts—one plain, one jelly-filled and one covered in rainbow sprinkles—and then turned back to the sink and his soapy plate. "I'll take the normal one. You can just put it down over here, Sensei. I'll eat it when I'm done."

Michelangelo skipped to the left in a little dance. "Careful, Leo—any more righteousness over there and you're gonna sprain something!" he sang out.

Leonardo shook his head. "Knock it off, Mikey," he said under his breath, apparently little interested in the customary taunt.

Michelangelo did not seem very interested either. He had already turned back to Splinter, eying the other donuts with a wolfish grin. "C'mon, Sensei. Where's mine? Where's mine?"

Splinter wondered if Leonardo always took the plain donut because that was his favorite kind, or because he knew it was the only kind no one else would want. He also wondered if it were truly wise to be giving Michelangelo a donut, when he was already in such an energetic mood. In the end, all he really knew was that he would get no peace until Michelangelo got his dessert, so he brought the plate down to Michelangelo's level, watching with tired but accustomed eyes as a small green hand seized the sprinkle donut and retreated at once into its owner's mouth.

"I's goo!" Michelangelo crowed through his full mouth. Donatello's face soured into a pout.

"You gave him the sprinkle one," he accused, looking up at his father with eyes that were used to getting their way. Splinter sighed.

"You may have this jelly donut, Donatello. Please do not make trouble." He had had quite enough of that for one day.

Whether for the tone of his voice or the edge of his frown, Splinter did not know, but Donatello complied after a moment and took the last remaining donut, leaving Splinter with an empty plate. An empty plate at which Raphael chose to direct the anger that had been festering in his eyes all this time; one furious hand shot out and smashed the plate from Splinter's worn hands, sending it clattering to the kitchen floor.

"This is so stupid!" Raphael shouted, his fists hard against the table. "Mikey's being a brat, but he gets off scot-free, and I don't get any dessert. It's all his fault but I get punished for it. You always do that, Master Splinter. You like Mikey better than me! You like everybody better than me!"

It was not a tantrum Raphael descended into very often—when he did, however, Splinter had learned long ago that the only way to stop it was to take a hard line with his eldest and deny him any power that this accusation might have assigned. A no-nonsense attitude: that was Splinter's choice with Raphael when the young turtle had well and truly lost his temper. It was his choice now, as well.

Of course, putting his no-nonsense foot down was much easier when Michelangelo wasn't around to stick that foot straight into his mouth.

"Well, no duh he likes me best," Michelangelo wheezed through the crumbs of his donut, so swiftly devoured that it was nothing but a memory around his rainbow-rimmed mouth. "I've got mad ninja skills, I'm an awesome conversationalist, and I've got a brain in my head. Oh yeah—and I'm the cutest. Who'd want a big dumb coyote like you, Raph?"

Splinter was not overly concerned about the horror that had come over Donatello's face at the suggestion that he was not the cutest of his brothers. Nor was he concerned about the frown or growing irritation he could see gathering on Leonardo's brow. What did concern him was Raphael's face growing more and more livid with every word out of Michelangelo's mouth, and the fork he still held in one fisted hand, which would become a weapon all too quickly if the young turtle got out of his seat.

The position of his feet told Splinter Raphael was planning to do just that. The only choice left to him was to strike first, and to strike decisively.

Well, it wasn't as though Michelangelo hadn't had it coming.

"I mean, let's face it, Raph. You might have a future in comic relief, but when it comes to the hero of the story—ow!"

"That is more than enough out of you, my son," Splinter said, as he gripped Michelangelo by the tails of his headband and dragged the mischievous hellion back to his side with a force Michelangelo had well and truly deserved. Then he leaned down and seized Michelangelo by the arm, marching him toward the door with only a brief pause to grab Donatello's arm along the way. "Since we all seem to have so much energy tonight, we will be using it to clean the lair. Michelangelo and Donatello, you will assist me in folding the laundry. Then we will shine the dojo floor until I am satisfied or until it is bedtime—whichever comes second."

"But I didn't do anything!" Donatello cried.

"What about Raph?" Michelangelo demanded, struggling harder than his brother in his master's unrelenting claws. Splinter frowned at him.

"That is none of your concern, Michelangelo. If you must know, Raphael will stay here and assist Leonardo in cleaning the kitchen. Now come."

"But I didn't finish my donut," Donatello said, trying to keep his fingers clear of the treat's oozing filling as he was dragged roughly out of the room. Michelangelo managed a backward glance in spite of their forward progression—and then he managed to throw a barb back as well, a skill for which it seemed there was no remedy.

"Kitchen duty with Leo? You guys are gonna be here all night! You just can't win, huh, Wiley?"

Then a fork embedded itself into the wall beside his head and Splinter pulled him none too gently down the hall toward the laundry room, ignoring his next to youngest's occasionally insufferable voice.

"Ow! Ow! You're going too fast, Sensei. When we go this fast, I can't even have a good laugh at Raphi!"

"You have done quite enough laughing at your brother for one day, Michelangelo," Splinter told him sternly, pushing his two younger children into the laundry room and toward the towering heaps of clean clothes consuming a pair of laundry baskets. Then he stood looking down at their little faces, as unimpressed by Donatello's dismayed expression as Michelangelo's little smile.

"Oh, come on, Sensei. You know you can never do enough laughing at Raph."

"I am going to have a talk with Raphael," Splinter told him, ignoring the comment except for a swat to the back of Michelangelo's head. "When I come back, I anticipate that the two of you will have folded all of the clothes in the first basket. That will not be too difficult, I assume?"

"What do we get if we win?" Michelangelo asked, clearly already framing his chores in the aspect of a game.

Splinter sent him a hard look. "A chance to do something other than chores tonight. If you fail, however, there will no more road runner and coyote for a week. Do you understand, my son?"

Michelangelo's face became mockingly grave. "Oh, way yes, Sensei. Don't worry. Donny and I've got it all under control."

"Why do I have to do it?" Donatello protested as Michelangelo pushed him toward the clothes, the youngest turtle glancing back over his shoulder as though hoping Splinter would come to his rescue. "I didn't do anything!"

"Thank you for assisting, Donatello," Splinter said mildly as he turned to leave.

"Come on, Donny," Michelangelo continued, attempting to encourage his brother with a strangely cheerful smile. "It's a matter of life and death! I gotta protect my fellow road runners, right? Help me out here, bro."

"Why should I? This is all your fault in the first place. If you didn't push Raph's buttons so much…"

"Raph's got buttons?"

Splinter shook his head at the current of bickering that followed him down the hallway, but he left all the same, intent on having a word with Raphael now that Michelangelo's absence would help his eldest stay calm. In the end, however, he didn't get his chance—as Splinter reached the last stride before the doorway of the kitchen, a voice stopped him, and he pulled back from the entrance, slipping into the shadows inside the mouth of the dojo.

"I hate this. I hate it when Mikey gets away with crap like this."

Splinter wanted to click his tongue at Raphael's language—an inevitable effect, maybe, of his sons growing up under the streets of New York City—but in the end he held back, waiting to see how Leonardo would answer him. It was rare these days—rarer than when they were small children, even—that Leonardo and Raphael held a conversation on their own. Their personalities were leading them different directions now, more so every day; this was a singular moment, and Splinter did not want to shatter it with his interference.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of water running into the sink, and the brush of plastics dishes in the drying rack. Then Leonardo cleared his throat.

"Hand me your plate, Raph."

"I mean, where the hell does he get off acting like that?" Raphael continued, with no indication that he'd heard his brother's request. "Mikey's so damn childish he makes me want to scream."

"You were being just as childish as he was." Leonardo's voice was closer now, his ghosting footsteps telling Splinter that he had crossed the room to get the plate himself. Raphael made a sound like a low growl in the back of his throat.

"Oh, yeah? You would think that, wouldn't you? Ninja suck-up."

For once Leonardo did not rise to the familiar insult, keeping his composure better than Splinter remembered him usually doing. "What else am I supposed to think, Raph?" Leonardo asked, and his voice was closer yet again as his feet stopped just shy of the doorway to pluck the ejected fork from the wall. "You lost your head over something stupid, and then you lost it again, and then you threw a fork at him, all over some cartoon. What part of that's not childish?"

"How about the part where it was all Mikey's fault?" Raphael challenged, his voice rising with anger and distance as Leonardo moved back to the sink. "Mikey was being a brat and everybody just let him get away with it. Everybody always does. It's way unfair. And because of Mikey, I—"

"It was too fair, Raph," Leonardo interrupted, his tone adopting a steel edge to match Raphael's unraveling temper. "Master Splinter warned you and you didn't listen to him. It's not Mikey's fault you're so hotheaded you can't see straight. Would you grow up already and stop pushing your mistakes off on other people?"

In the darkness of the abandoned dojo, Splinter winced to himself. The background clink of plastic had ceased—Leonardo must have stopped washing the dishes to speak to Raphael, must have been facing his brother when a bang announced that Raphael had jumped out of his chair, the seat slamming back against the table as he rounded on Leonardo.

"What do you know, huh? You're so high and mighty—perfect Leo, always does what Master Splinter says. Of course you're gonna be on Mikey's side, just like he is. Like he always is. Mikey's the one who started it with me. He's the one that should be getting blamed for all this!"

"You know why he's not?" Leonardo countered, his voice growing clearer as the water shut off behind him. "Because whatever he said to you, you're the one who took it to the next level. You could've put his eye out—you realize that?"

"Well, at least he couldn't be road runner anymore," Raphael grumbled, the clatter of startled dishes telling Splinter he had kicked the table leg. "Road runner's got two eyes."

There was a brief silence from Leonardo's side of the room. Then: "That is the stupidest thing you've ever said in your life."

"Would you get off my case?" Raphael roared, losing the last vestiges of his self-control. "He drove me to it, Leo. You saw him. He was provoking me on purpose!"

"Yeah. Yeah, he was, Raph." Splinter leaned into the wall, his old ears working to catch the softer but no less intense tone Leonardo's voice had taken. "And you let him win. That's the real loss here. You let Mikey tie you up in knots over a few dumb things he said. That's his victory, Raph. You happy with that?"

For the first time in a few tense minutes, there was absolute silence in the kitchen, thicker than the shadows that had surrounded Splinter so completely. Then there was a sound something like a sigh—or perhaps it was a sigh, but a sigh was such an uncommon expression from Raphael's lips that Splinter almost didn't recognize it.

"You know what, Leo?" There was a dull thud as the eldest turtle slumped back into his chair, his voice dropping in volume and octave to match his brother's. "There're a lot of things I hate. Sometimes Mikey's even one of 'em. But you know what I hate the most? I hate it when you're right."

The silence returned to them. It hovered, unsettled, over the kitchen, as though unsure where to put its feet in a room that might descend at any moment into argument again. Then the faucet turned back on and the clink of dishes began again, and Raphael heaved another half-sigh, the water the only thing moving in the kitchen for a long minute.

At last the water turned off again, and with the loss of its rhythm a set of footsteps made their way across the room—then there was a soft _plop_ Splinter could not guess at, and he risked a glance around the doorframe to see that Leonardo had moved to Raphael's side and dropped his donut onto the edge of the table, drawing his brother's surprised eyes up to his solemn face.

"Leo…"

"I'm trying to clean up in here, Raph," Leonardo said, cutting off whatever Raphael might have asked. "If you're not gonna help you can just leave—I'll finish by myself. It's better than you getting in the way." Raphael looked between his brother and the donut again, and Leonardo sighed, shaking his head at the impassive ceiling. "I didn't want it in the first place. You can have it. I don't care."

"But Sensei…" Raphael began.

"It's okay. He's helping Mike and Don with the laundry," Leonardo replied, not knowing how his assumption brought a smile to one watching father's face. The young turtle sent Raphael a hard look. "Just eat it and cool your head, all right? I'm sick of you fighting with Mikey."

With no more explanation than that, Leonardo headed back to his dishes, never noticing the bright eyes watching him from the doorway or the way Raphael's gaze followed his back all the way to the sink. For a moment the scrubbing of pans was the only conversation between them, as Leonardo focused on his chores and Raphael reached for the donut and then drew his hand back again, torn between obeying his newfound sense of guilt and following his brother's lead. Then Leonardo set his last dish aside and leaned back against the counter, watching Raphael with arms folded over his chest.

"What kind of road runner eats a donut with sprinkles, anyway?"

Raphael grinned. "I know, right?"

Splinter smiled with him. Then he turned away and sunk back into the shadows, the fingers of night guiding his quiet feet back the way they had come. In the darkness, Splinter nodded to himself. Raphael had gotten a donut after all—but he found he did not mind, because the lesson he was trying to teach had already been learned, through words that, when his sons were younger, he would have put an immediate stop to.

Splinter paused at the junction with the hallway and glanced back at the kitchen doorway, bright with light if not with laughter. Leonardo had always been an able disciplinarian—that in itself did not impress him. What he was so proud of, standing here at the crossroads of darkness and light and listening to the echoes of four voices painting the air, was that somehow Leonardo was the only one of them who seemed to be able to get through to Raphael, when it really mattered. If even Raphael would listen to him, Splinter had no doubts that Leonardo would someday be able to take charge of all his brothers, and that was a prospect that he found worth hoping for.

_End Chapter 13_


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Moving into Mikey's section, the last one. It's absurdly long, though. Trust Mikey to keep running his mouth.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Splinter paused at the junction with the hallway and glanced back at the kitchen doorway, bright with light if not with laughter. Leonardo had always been an able disciplinarian—that in itself did not impress him. What he was so proud of, standing here at the crossroads of darkness and light and listening to the echoes of four voices painting the air, was that somehow Leonardo was the only one of them who seemed to be able to get through to Raphael, when it really mattered. If even Raphael would listen to him, Splinter had no doubts that Leonardo would someday be able to take charge of all his brothers, and that was a prospect that he found worth hoping for._

.x.

It was a hope that had long been realized.

Splinter shared another smile with the memories laid out so clearly in his hands, sharp and clear in spite of the fading color stained to Leonardo's unfinished pictures. Then he shuffled Leonardo's drawings gently onto Raphael and Donatello's, almost a complete stack in his arms now, and bent to continue his task, no shadow strong enough to keep the light out of his eyes.

There was only one set of pictures left, after all.

The picture that came to Splinter's hand was as different from Leonardo's as could possibly be drawn. The brilliant colors—every color, it seemed, that had ever come into the gleeful little hand so excited to wield its crayons—were spread in energetic chaos across the surface of the paper, sometimes ignoring the outlined forms of superheroes and cityscapes entirely in favor of creatures and persons of original invention. For its chaos, the picture almost reminded Splinter of Raphael's. But there was an unmistakable joy in the grinning aliens and bulbous terrapin forms that Raphael's drawings seemed to lack—even Donatello's art, warm with the impression of a gentle heart, could not come close to this in its sheer exuberance. And of course, neither joy nor exuberance had so much as touched the surface of Leonardo's pictures.

With a claw softened by time and charmed reminiscence, Splinter followed the lines of his next to youngest's crayon figures, each one jutting at random out of the fabric of the pre-created picture. He had not remembered the erratic nature of the artwork. But it did not surprise him. Michelangelo's drawings seemed to exhibit the same focus—or lack of focus—that all of life had held for him as a child. It was an attribute Splinter remembered well in his third son—better, perhaps, because the thread of that rambunctiousness was still running wild in Michelangelo, the match that so often set off the sparks of a free spirit and all the trouble that came with it.

.x.

"I am still waiting for an answer, children."

Eight small eyes blinked up at Splinter in false innocence, all four turtles watching their father in silence as he paced back and forth. Splinter paused in his motion to send them a look, glaring particularly at the two turtles who stood in the middle of the line.

"My errand to the surface did not take longer than half an hour. You cannot have run out of paper in that short amount of time." Still no answer from the four faces, which were growing guiltier by the minute. Splinter crossed his arms over his chest. "I would like an explanation as to when—and why—you began coloring on the kitchen table instead of the paper I left you."

Donatello shifted and hid his hands behind his back, as though by removing the responsible appendages he could remove the guilt that stained them. Leonardo looked guilty, too, but Splinter knew better than to think his second son had been involved in the coloring bonanza—Leonardo barely colored on paper. More likely, Leonardo's expression stemmed from whatever he'd been doing when he'd left his brothers to their own devices—admiring the practice swords he was not yet allowed to use, perhaps—which explained not only his shamed countenance but the reason he hadn't pointed his father toward a cause and culprit yet.

Raphael had gotten sullen, and as always sullen made him quiet, his lower lip jutting out stiffly as though to keep his jaw clamped firmly shut. But Raphael only got sullen when he was wishing he hadn't done whatever he was in trouble for—otherwise, the eldest turtle only got angry. So Splinter was not particularly concerned about him, either.

In fact, only one of Splinter's sons did not seem particularly repentant about the great alien and spaceship war that seemed to have taken place on their old plywood table. Michelangelo glanced back at the table in question and then looked up at his father, his face split by an overly toothy grin.

"Gee, Sensei. I dunno what happened. Maybe the crayons did that all by themselves."

Splinter raised an eyebrow at this, and Raphael smacked his brother's shell, his whisper far too loud for Splinter's keen hearing.

"Shut it, you dummy. If you're gonna lie, at least make it believable."

"Got it," Michelangelo whispered back, giving his brother a thumbs-up. Then the little turtle turned back to his father, his grin only getting wider. "It was all Raph's fault."

"What?" Raphael roared, diving at his brother and carrying them back into a great rolling pile-up. "What're you pointin' the finger at me for?"

"You said make it believable," Michelangelo replied, tussling right back as the pair rolled into the coffee table. "That's totally believable. You do stuff like that all the time."

"I am not the one who started the alien war!" Raphael shouted, and Splinter wondered if it were himself, his family or all of New York the little turtle were trying to convince. Michelangelo just laughed.

"Well, duh. You don't have room for creativity in your teeny tiny brain."

"Children, children," Splinter interrupted, too used to Raphael and Michelangelo's spats to chase them around the living room. The old rat waited until they rolled within reach, and then he grabbed them by the tails of their headbands, earning twin yelps as he dragged the two roughly apart.

"I can see that I will not be getting a straight answer out of any of you," Splinter said, sending a sharp look around the circle to include all of his children in the admonishment. "Whether it was the crayons or your good sense that got away from you, I believe a reminder of ninja discipline is in order. Come—we will begin training early today."

"But Sensei, we didn't get to finish our alien war," Michelangelo protested, trailing behind his shamefaced and sullen brothers as they shuffled toward the dojo. Michelangelo flexed, both hands raised in a pose of victory. "My intergalactic federation was just about to crush Raph's evil dominion! And that boring blob Donny was drawing."

Splinter wondered to himself why it was that Michelangelo, who still occasionally had trouble annunciating his words properly, could say 'intergalactic federation' without a hiccup—and what this meant about how much television his next to youngest watched. His children did not seem half so impressed. Raphael slipped a sharp elbow into his brother's stomach, and Donatello stomped his foot, indignant in spite of his guilty shame.

"It wasn't a blob. It was a diagram for a new portable telephone." Donatello shot a quick look up at his father, hunching his shoulders again in renewed apology. "I didn't mean to color on the table. I just didn't notice when I went off the edge of the paper."

"Oh, way to spill the beans, Donny," Michelangelo muttered, and Raphael stepped on his foot.

"Like you didn't already do that, ya numbskull."

Splinter spared himself a sigh for his two constantly bickering children—and for his youngest son, who was so bright and simultaneously so likely to lose track of the outside world in pursuit of his brilliant ideas. But he didn't say anything, because they had reached the dojo and there were lessons to be handed out.

"We will begin with pushups," Splinter said, sending each of his children a sharp look in turn. "Leonardo, perhaps you would be willing to count?"

"Yes, Sensei." Leonardo got into push-up position with his eyes still on the door, his self-loathing expression turned away from the rack of practice weapons in open repentance. His brothers got down onto their knees more slowly, Donatello sporting his usual pushup pout and Raphael grumbling something under his breath. Michelangelo didn't seem to be fazed.

"What's the damage, Sensei?" he asked. "How many are we doing?"

"A hundred," Leonardo answered before Splinter could even open his mouth. Donatello's jaw fell open in horror.

"I can't do a hundred!" the youngest turtle protested.

Raphael's bad mood had made him cruel, and he leaned over to push Donatello's shoulder, knocking this younger brother off of his balance. "Maybe you could if you did always baby out halfway through your pushups."

"Raphael, Donatello," Splinter soothed, sending his eldest child a look and brushing a reassuring hand over the youngest's shell. "We will begin with thirty. Is that acceptable?"

Leonardo's frown said it wasn't enough, and Donatello's said it was still too many. But it was not a question he truly wanted an answer to, and he left them to it without taking any more complaints, only waiting to hear the counting begin before he moved back into the kitchen with a minor sigh and a major headache.

"Ich, ni, san, shi…"

Table and crayon were not playmates that should often be allowed interaction—and Splinter's sons had taken the damage as far as they could, as usual, not only covering the entire surface with spacecraft and laser beams but rubbing so hard that many of the crayons were almost destroyed, with slivers of wood protruding from their ends. Of course, Splinter, like all parents, had long ago embraced the power of 409 and other cleaning solvents—but he wondered if even the magic spray bottles he kept far out of reach on the highest cabinet shelf could tackle this job. It was likely that the shadow of this alien war would forever be imprinted on their kitchen table…

It was worth a try, in any case.

Splinter was not more than an elbow's length into the cleaning job when a gradually sharpening whine drew him away from paper towels and surface cleaner to inspect his children's progress. The whine was Donatello's, and Splinter could see at a glance that his youngest's effort had severely declined since he left them to their task—the little turtle barely bent his elbows now, his whine intended to stop his ruthless brother's counting. Leonardo, for his part, seemed to be ignoring Donatello's questions of 'Aren't we done yet?' and 'This is enough, right?' as he pushed on through the exercise with the full force of his repentance. Raphael was still going, too—though as usual, he was going faster than his brothers and trying to squeeze two pushups into every one of Leonardo's, a competitive compulsion that had made him both the strongest and the most easily tired of the turtles. And Michelangelo…

Michelangelo was doing his pushups over a comic book—one-handed pushups when he needed to flip the page.

Splinter held his silence until his next to youngest reached for the book again. Then he pulled in a deep breath.

"Michelangelo!"

The sharp rapport of his father's voice startled Michelangelo right out of his comic book absorption, and out of his balance as well, sending him careening without an ounce of ninja grace down into the thick of his pages. The name surprised the other turtles, too, and they sat up abruptly, each one stiff under the weight of their wary shells.

"Ow… what'd ya do that for, Sensei?" Michelangelo groaned, picking himself up off of his face. "You totally ruined the suspenseful moment. Will Spiderman make it out in one piece? Or will he be defeated once and for all by his arch nemesis—"

"Michelangelo." The little turtle blinked at his repeated name, and Splinter crossed his arms over his robe, staring down into the eyes that his annoyance never seemed to phase. "How did that comic book get in here, my son?"

"Well, I definitely didn't plan to sneak it in under my headband in case we had a super-boring class today," Michelangelo told him earnestly, nodding his insufferable head. Splinter leaned down to pick up the comic book—then he rolled it into a loose cylinder and smacked Michelangelo across the shoulder, earning a surprised yelp from his next to youngest son. "What?" Michelangelo whined, rubbing his arm. "I said I definitely _didn't_."

"What have I told you about reading comic books during training, my son?" Splinter asked, settling the confiscated comic against his hip.

Michelangelo's mouth twisted in thought. "It's only okay if the last one ended in a cliffhanger?"

Now it was Raphael's turn to deliver a sharp smack to the back of his brother's skull, and Splinter shook his head but didn't comment, because it was a blow Michelangelo had deserved and it would have been his own hand, had it not been Raphael's. Instead the old rat moved to the side of the dojo and dragged a long beam away from the wall, eyes that were quickly losing their almost angelic patience turning back to his four difficult charges.

"Since we seem to have done enough pushups, it might be wise to move onto the balance beam." Splinter raised a heavy eyebrow, folding tired arms across the fabric of his robe. "Perhaps that would be more to your liking, Michelangelo?"

"I dunno," Michelangelo said, scratching one foot against the other. "Maybe—would it mean I get my comic book back?"

This time it was Donatello who joined in the quest to silence Michelangelo, kicking his brother none too gently in the shin. Splinter saw them safely onto the beam and then headed back to the kitchen, one ear cocked for further disturbances. And in that regard, he wasn't disappointed. He had barely rubbed in the next coat of solvent before the strains of a quarrel dragged him back into the dojo, pulling his pulsing headache along with him.

"What is it now?" Splinter asked as he entered, studying the clump of arguing turtles that had come together at the center of the beam. Leonardo stuck his hands on his hips.

"Mikey's not practicing seriously, Sensei," Splinter's second son reported, indicating his troublesome brother with one pointing finger. "He's walking on his hands instead."

"Dude, chill out," Michelangelo said, still poised upside-down on the beam. "I'm still balancing, aren't I?"

"This isn't a game, Mikey," Leonardo snapped, self-righteous guilt making his voice harsh. Michelangelo laughed.

"No kidding. You're the only person who'd do this for fun."

Splinter cleared his throat, pulling three rightside-up and one upside-down pairs of eyes back to his face. The old rat felt his hands settling into their familiar positions at his hips. "Michelangelo. Why are you walking on your hands?"

"Walking normally is boring, Sensei," Michelangelo said, swaying a little as his balance wavered. Then he gave an inverted grin. "Besides, if I walk normally I can't do this!" Michelangelo shoved his feet into Raphael's face, wiggling his toes like crazy. "Stinky feet! Stinky feet! Stinky ninja feet!"

"Ugh! That's disgusting, Mikey!" Raphael lashed out with one fist, the blow toppling his brother off of the beam and onto the dojo floor. Michelangelo hit the ground with a tremendous crash, but he landed on his shell, less hurt than inconvenienced by the inevitable attack.

"Help! I'm a turtle and I can't get up!"

"You are not taking your training seriously today, my sons," Splinter said through his sigh, rolling Michelangelo back onto his feet. Leonardo stuck out his jaw as though in protest of the collective admonishment, but Splinter pressed on, tipping his head toward the dummies clustered in one corner of the room. "I must continue cleaning the table. Until I am finished, I expect you to practice reverse wheel kicks against the targets. Diligently," he added, with a special glare for Michelangelo. "I trust that will not be too difficult?"

His final question hung over the dojo as the four little turtles dragged the standing bags out of the corner and set to work, and they were the last words that followed Splinter as he returned to the kitchen and his cleanup chores. For a few minutes he cleaned without any other thoughts—then Splinter paused in his paper towel sweep, listening to the background crunch of beaten bags as he gazed down the table. One claw reached out to trace a victorious, grinning alien, and Splinter shook his head. In its own way, this table was a perfect image of his next to youngest son: playful, passionate, creative—and as focused as a needleless compass.

It took Splinter ten more minutes to get the table passably clean, though the impression of a colorful battle lingered among the slivers of the well-worn tabletop. He put the cleaning solution away and gave the table another rinse with plain water, since it was not unthinkable for one of his sons to eat right off of the wood and 409 poisoning was the last thing he needed to deal with today. Then he moved back into the dojo to inspect his children, his eyes shifting one by one down the line of industrious turtles.

Leonardo and Raphael were fast and strong as usual, Leonardo faster and Raphael stronger. Donatello had never learned to lift his leg quite high enough when he kicked, but he was practicing quietly, at least. And Michelangelo…

Was up to no good again.

"Aha—think you've got me beat, huh?" Michelangelo demanded of the dummy, in a voice quiet enough to express his intention to be sneaky but far too loud to hide anything. "Think you can take the all-powerful Michelangelo? Well allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine—the rising dragon kick of ultimate destruction!"

With that Michelangelo pivoted on his forward foot and swung around in a long arc, bringing the ball of his foot down hard against the collarbone of the dummy—the dummy on which a face had been drawn with a pilfered crayon, Splinter noticed—and let out a great battle cry, following this with a second twisting kick to the teeth. The other three turtles whipped around at their brother's shout, and Donatello drew his foot down too sharply and stubbed his toe, adding a whimper of pain to the silence of the dojo.

Splinter was getting tired of crossing his arms over his chest. "Michelangelo."

Michelangelo turned around with a start, noticing for the first time the master who had come up no great distance behind him. The little turtle tucked his hands into fists and hid them behind his back, no doubt concealing the bright red crayon he had taken to the dummy's face. "Master Splinter," he began, then paused to mimic his father's pose with his arms across his chest. "Aren't you supposed to be cleaning the table? You're not gonna finish very fast if you keep coming back here, you know."

Splinter tried to contain the twitch that irony and annoyance sent through his forehead. He did not succeed. The tick settled above one narrowed eye, ruffling his short gray fur into a pattern of well-worn irritation.

"Michelangelo," he repeated. "Where did you learn that kick?"

He hadn't taught his sons that combination wheel kick yet—it was still beyond the control level of the four impatient young turtles. Or so Splinter had thought. But Michelangelo was not far from having it right, and that without any formal instruction.

Michelangelo beamed. "Oh, that. My good buddy Bruce Lee taught me. It's his rising dragon kick of ultimate destruction. Like it?"

So eyes and instinct were his teachers. Looking down at his next to youngest son with a gaze that wanted to be more annoyed than it was, Splinter was forced to realize again what a natural ability Michelangelo had for learning martial arts—this combination kick was not a simple one to learn, but Michelangelo had figured it out primarily on his own, with only a visual example and no direct instruction. Nor was it the first time Michelangelo had demonstrated this knack for picking things up. It was a pity his instinct for form and mechanics only applied to those limited exercises that could keep the young turtle's attention.

"My son, I believe I asked you to practice your reverse wheel kicks," Splinter said after a moment, wiping the delight off of Michelangelo's face with his gentle reminder. Michelangelo scrunched up his face.

"The reverse wheel kick is hard, Sensei," Michelangelo replied, earning a shake of the head from the old rat who knew how much more difficult the rising dragon kick of ultimate destruction had to be.

"And why did you draw a face on your target?" he asked, leaving the first issue momentarily aside.

"Oh, that." Michelangelo shrugged. "That's Raph's face. I find it inspirational."

"Hey!" Raphael abandoned his own dummy at that and hurtled in Michelangelo's direction, but Splinter caught him before he could reach his brother, sending Michelangelo a stern look for the comment and the tongue now protruding from his mouth.

"That is enough. Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello, please go and have a glass of water." The three turtles bowed with varying degrees of sincerity and headed for the kitchen, and Michelangelo slipped in behind them, stopping only as Splinter took hold of his bandana tails and yanked him back.

"Did I mention your name, my son?" Splinter asked, holding the orange fabric like a pair of reins. Michelangelo grinned.

"Nope. I figured you just forgot me."

Who could forget Michelangelo? "Stay back a moment, please," Splinter said, though he waited until the other children had quitted the room to say anything more. Then he turned back to Michelangelo, his face adopting the same half-stern, half-gentle expression he always saved for problems that arose during training.

"My son, you performed that kick very well."

"Yeah, I thought so, too," Michelangelo cut in, taking his praise as gracelessly as usual. "Didja see the part where I flashed my heroic pose? I bet even Bruce Lee would have been—"

"Michelangelo." Michelangelo blinked up at his father with wide, seemingly innocent eyes. Splinter sent him a hard look anyway. "I was not finished. Although you are doing well, you will never perfect your technique if you do not learn to concentrate."

"I was concentrating," Michelangelo said, lifting one arm. "See how sweaty I am?"

"That is not what I mean," Splinter said, his voice fully scolding now. "In every exercise I have asked of you, I return to find you doing something else. Nor is this the first day this has been the case."

Michelangelo laughed a little. "Well, sometimes your exercises are really boring, Sensei."

"Be that as it may," Splinter persisted, pinning the little turtle's gaze with his own. "These exercises are the foundation of your training. A great ninja is like a tree in summer: all of his branches and leaves must stand strong together no matter how the wind blows. If his mind is not focused, he will lose skill as a tree loses its leaves in winter, and will not be able to utilize his full potential."

"No way," Michelangelo said, staring up at his father with wide, attentive eyes. "That sounds like bad news."

A wrinkle of doubt flitted over Splinter's forehead. "Do you understand, my son?"

"Totally," Michelangelo exclaimed, tightening his small hands into determined fists. "Don't worry, Sensei. Focus is the name of the game from now on."

Splinter wasn't sure he believed that, but he let his son run along to join his brothers in the kitchen, giving them another few minutes to rest before training resumed. Not fifteen minutes later, however, when Michelangelo suddenly abandoned their task of handstand pushups and began to walk around the room upside down, Splinter could not say he was surprised. He was not even annoyed. He only wondered, as he watched the little turtle careen dangerously close to the dojo walls, whether there was anything that could be said to sharpen Michelangelo's focus, or whether that was one endeavor he was better off abandoning.

_End Chapter 14_


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Moving into Mikey's section, the last one. It's absurdly long, though. Trust Mikey to keep running his mouth.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Totally," Michelangelo exclaimed, tightening his small hands into determined fists. "Don't worry, Sensei. Focus is the name of the game from now on."_

_Splinter wasn't sure he believed that, but he let his son run along to join his brothers in the kitchen, giving them another few minutes to rest before training resumed. Not fifteen minutes later, however, when Michelangelo suddenly abandoned their task of handstand pushups and began to walk around the room upside down, Splinter could not say he was surprised. He was not even annoyed. He only wondered, as he watched the little turtle careen dangerously close to the dojo walls, whether there was anything that could be said to sharpen Michelangelo's focus, or whether that was one endeavor he was better off abandoning._

.x.

Was it an effort he had abandoned? It was certainly a battle he'd never won for long, Splinter recalled, sweeping his unoccupied arm out into the colorful sea of memory to pull the scattered pictures closer. Michelangelo's mind—which functioned in his adulthood much as it had in his childhood—was too unsteady to contain for long, and Splinter had learned with time and experience to think carefully before deciding to invest the effort it took to contain him even that long.

So had his brothers, Splinter knew—though Leonardo's voice, reaching his wise, worn ears through the pattern of echoes so unique to their ruined home, told him that Leonardo, at least, found their current task worthy of that effort. Michelangelo was agreeing whole-heartedly with his brother's insistences on progress and focus—but Leonardo was still speaking, so Splinter could guess that Michelangelo's actions were not quite in tune with his promises. Focus had never been his next to youngest's strong suit.

That much was apparent in his pictures, too. Splinter culled another picture into his hand, smiling to himself at the four small turtles that had been scrawled in scratchy crayon right over Metalhead's face, each one's expression a fitting caricature of the figures that had inspired a child's cheerful fingers. Here was a comic book that had been bought for Michelangelo, with his own interests in mind, and yet even this was not safe from the wanderings of the young turtle's mind, always in bright color and generally away from direction of any kind.

There was another similarity between the pictures that it took Splinter a moment to notice—but when he did, it seemed so fitting that he just had to smile, listening to a mindless ear to Leonardo and Michelangelo's ongoing discussion. Almost all of the pictures incorporated Michelangelo's brothers in some way—if not all of them, then one or two turtle figures at least, edged in around dragons or robots or whatever else had caught young Michelangelo's attention.

It made Splinter smile because it reminded him that Michelangelo had been the first of his sons to seek connections with the others, and to revel in the attention that came his way, whether good or ill. But then, Michelangelo had been the first in a lot of things, in his own tumbling way. The first, especially, to charge headfirst and blind into the field of words, talkative from the very beginning—talkative before he could talk. The first, as Splinter had to admit he remembered best, to learn one word in particular, and to use it ever after with reckless abandon.

.x.

"Love bat'time!"

Michelangelo's energetic shriek was accompanied by two tiny fists hitting the soapy water, and Splinter blinked as flecks of the same water splashed up into his face. The old rat raised a hand to wipe them away—but it was useless, because bath time with Michelangelo always soaked him thoroughly, fur and robe and all the rest.

"Love bat'time!" Michelangelo repeated, directing his glowing grin up toward the father who was only getting damper. Splinter found a smile.

"Yes, my son. Bath time. Baths help us keep clean," he said, lifting water in the cup of his hand and trickling it over Michelangelo's head. A moment later Michelangelo saved him the trouble, dunking his head under the surface of the water and blowing a great stream of bubbles into the bathtub.

Splinter sighed a little as his next to youngest emerged with another shriek of pleasure that resounded in waves against the bathroom walls. Michelangelo was loud and messy when he took his baths, true, but at least he enjoyed taking them. Which was more than Splinter could say for difficult Donatello, rebellious Raphael and Leonardo who never went through bath time without a small scowl on his face.

"No bat!" Raphael shouted, corralled in the bathroom with his father and brother by a door he wasn't yet tall enough to open. Splinter spared him only a glance, turning back to pull Michelangelo's cheerful face up out of the water.

"You will have your bath in a minute, Raphael," he said, listening with a half-cocked ear for any sound from Leonardo and Donatello in the living room beyond. His response made the little turtle's face swell up even more with his familiar anger.

"No bat!" Raphael repeated. Then he reached up and punched the shampoo bottle into the tub, sending it down on Michelangelo's head with a resounding clunk.

Michelangelo did not cry as he was dunked under the water by the unexpected blow to the head, or as he was pulled up and then out of the water by his surprised and worried father. He got his revenge on Raphael in another way—entirely unintentionally, from what Splinter could see, but effective nonetheless.

"Love Raphi!" Michelangelo cried as he was lifted out of the tub, flailing his soapy limbs in the direction of his brother. And Raphael, who had been standing nearby to watch the proceedings, got kicked right in his surly frown.

"Ow!" Raphael shouted, collapsing back onto his shell. The barest impression of angry tears were forming in the eldest turtle's eyes, so Splinter rushed Michelangelo into a towel and out into the next room, where his remaining brothers were curled up on the couch in their own towels, peacefully watching cartoons.

"Love Raphi," Michelangelo told his father as he was settled hurriedly between Leonardo and Donatello's cocooned forms.

"Yes, my son. Raphael loves you, too," Splinter said as he returned to the bathroom and the temper tantrum already starting within as fast as his legs could carry him.

Raphael did not like being kicked, and he did not want his bath—and between the two it took Splinter twenty minutes to get his eldest son clean, dry and reasonably calm. He returned to find Michelangelo engaged in one of his favorite pastimes: talking back to the television, a string of baby syllables following every sound the TV made. Leonardo didn't seem to mind—probably because he wasn't paying any attention to the television in the first place, if the direction of his gaze was any indication—but Donatello had begun to whimper a little, distracted from the program by his brother's meaningless babble.

"Daddy…" the little turtle began, his standard approach to anything that displeased him. Splinter made to sit Raphael down beside his anxious youngest son and then reconsidered, placing Raphael to Leonardo's left and hoping their towels would keep the two from bothering each other.

"Michelangelo," he said, drawing the bright eyes of the turtle in question up to his face.

"Love TV!" Michelangelo replied, throwing up his hands in celebration. Splinter patted his head.

"Yes, I know, my son. But you are bothering your brother. Donatello would like you to be quieter, please."

Michelangelo didn't seem to understand all of the reprimand, but he did look over at Donatello, the name at least registering with him. Then he let out a laugh.

"Love Donny!" Michelangelo announced, diving toward his brother with his arms outstretched for a hug. But Michelangelo missed, and he caught his brother in the eye instead, toppling them both backward into the arm of the couch as Donatello's startled shriek burst into a fit of tears.

"Daddy! Ow, Daddy!"

Splinter rushed forward to pull his children apart, emerging from the fray with a crying Donatello in one arm and a Michelangelo in the other, still craning his chubby arms in the direction of his injured brother.

"Love fussy Donny," Michelangelo tried, and Splinter winced at the word he used for Donatello himself that his next to youngest seemed to have picked up. Donatello didn't seem to appreciate the appellative, either, squirming away from Michelangelo and into his father's robe.

"No Mikey!" Donatello demanded, sending his brother a one-eyed glare.

"Fussy Donny," Michelangelo returned, looking up at his father with a smile that proved he had no idea whatever of his insult. Splinter closed his eyes and let himself sink for a moment into a heavy sigh. Then he turned back to the two turtles in his arms and the two regarding him from the couch and began another round of turtle shuffling.

Donatello didn't want to be next to Michelangelo anymore—neither did Raphael, after the trouble in the bathroom. In fact, Raphael and Donatello didn't seem to want Michelangelo nearby at all, and they let out all manner of squawks as Splinter set his next to youngest down on the couch again, barricaded between Leonardo and the arm of the old sofa. In the end Splinter chose to remove Michelangelo altogether—but Michelangelo never liked to be alone, so the old rat took Leonardo along, too, settling each little turtle into his high chair with an afternoon snack before returning to soothe his ruffled children.

Rather than prying Donatello's eye open and risking a more serious consequence to a doubtlessly fleeting injury, Splinter tied a cloth across Donatello's eye to keep the little turtle from bothering it and left his treatment at that. He spent a few minutes watching cartoons with his eldest and youngest sons, long enough to be sure they were both fascinated by the television and unlikely to bother each other in his absence. Then he returned to see what Michelangelo had made of his pudding, though in his heart he already knew.

"Love messy!" Michelangelo cried as Splinter entered the kitchen—and indeed he seemed to, splattered from the plastron up with gobs of chocolate pudding. Splinter shook his head and removed the empty rubber spoon from Leonardo's mouth, because his son had been gnawing just a little too hard for his toothless mouth.

"It is not called 'messy,'" Splinter said, pointing to the pudding container as he slipped a spoonful of pudding into Leonardo's mouth. "This is pudding, Michelangelo. Pudding."

"Love messy pudding," the young turtle modified obediently, and Splinter had to chuckle, giving Leonardo his spoon back as he moved to inspect his next to youngest's high chair.

"Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it?" he agreed, retrieving a wet cloth from the sink to preemptively deal with the pudding Michelangelo had knocked all over the floor. The turtle watched him for a moment and then turned back to his brother, waving a spoonful of pudding in one chocolate-covered fist.

"Love pudding?" he asked, pointing at the brother who had gotten his rubber spoon into his mouth again without the pudding that was meant to accompany it. Splinter raised an eyebrow.

"Leonardo does not seem so, does he, Michelangelo?" Splinter stood up to watch Leonardo again, folding the dirty rag in one soft hand. "Are you not hungry, Leonardo? Or would you prefer something else for a snack?"

Leonardo considered the question in silence as he took the spoon back out of his mouth, turning it over in one contemplative hand. Then he glanced up at Splinter, holding the spoon and his container of pudding out in Michelangelo's direction.

"Share, Leo," he said, imitating his father so faithfully that his own name remained in the statement. Splinter blinked a little, wondering if he truly issued that command often enough for the words to stick in his second son's vocabulary.

"It is good to share, Leonardo," Splinter said, careful of the slight confusion building on the little turtle's face. "But you do not have to give Michelangelo your pudding if you would like to eat it."

Leonardo reconsidered at this, and in the end he withdrew the hand that held his spoon, only offering Michelangelo his pudding. Michelangelo was only too happy to take him up on the offer, squealing as Splinter delivered the pudding to him and squeezing it in eager hands.

"More pudding!"

Splinter shook himself from the half-worried look he'd been giving Leonardo long enough to vouchsafe the descent of Michelangelo's spoon into the pudding. Then he patted Michelangelo's head.

"What do we say to Leonardo, my son?"

Michelangelo paused with his spoon halfway into the pudding, a tremendous grin overtaking his face.

"Love Leo!" he shouted, throwing up his hands. With his hands came the spoonful of pudding, and the force of his exclamation and his slippery hands together tore it from his grip. Splinter caught the spoon before it hit Leonardo in the head—but he couldn't catch the pudding, and that splattered all across the little turtle's surprised face, those unusually chocolate eyes staring up at Splinter in horror and shock. Then Leonardo's face crumpled into an uncomprehending frown.

"Why?" he demanded, pounding his rubber spoon against the high chair tray. "Why Mikey?"

It was with not a little exasperation that Splinter hauled his two middle children back into the bathroom for their second bath of the day. Leonardo had not been particularly excited about his first bath, and he certainly didn't want to take a bath with Michelangelo, having even less patience than usual for the ducks and bubbles his brother constantly shoved in his face. When at last Splinter did get them both clean, it was all he could do to cart them back to the living room, his feet giving out in exhaustion as soon as the rocking chair came within reach. But he hardly had time for a deep breath and a steadying sigh before the mess in the kitchen occurred to him once more.

"Love Daddy," Michelangelo told him as he was dropped back onto the couch with Leonardo, receiving an unwelcoming shove from Raphael. Splinter closed his eyes.

"Yes, my son. Thank you. But I must see to the kitchen now." And saying no more Splinter rose to his duties, the dread of drying chocolate pudding haunting his every step.

Splinter was a thorough cleaner, and Michelangelo's high chair was an utter mess. Between the two factors, it took a Splinter a long time to finish cleaning up—long enough that he had only just begun rinsing his washcloth when tiny footsteps infiltrated the kitchen doorway. Splinter glanced back over one shoulder to see Michelangelo standing behind him, his oblivious smile almost bright enough to make his father forget that he was the cause of all the trouble.

On little feet that did not yet—would they ever?—move with grace or coordination, Michelangelo tripped his way into the room, moving to stand at his master's feet and looking up with a grin.

"Love Mikey," he said, stretching up his arms.

Splinter sighed into his smile. It was not a coincidence, but rather a tribute to his son's great, engulfing heart that he had been the first among his brothers to learn the word 'love,' and to love using it as well. And there was no denying that all that love caused no end of mischief sometimes, as it had today. But be all of that as it may, there was nothing Splinter could do to keep from answering that little voice, reaching down and lifting Michelangelo into his soft arms with an even softer smile.

"Yes, my son," he said, pressing the turtle tight into his robe. "Yes, I always will."

.x.

It was a rare day when Michelangelo was not to be found in the company of his brothers. He was—always had been—a sociable child, who in the crib had been liable to babble at whatever part of a brother was nearest, be it foot, shell or back of the head. His brothers, for their part, tended to like his company, too—at least, that was what Splinter assumed, since they spent so much time together.

Today, however, was one of those rare days when Michelangelo and his brothers had parted ways, a distance of at least six feet resting between the party of three turtles and their outcast brother on the opposite side of the living room.

"Michelangelo?"

Michelangelo looked up at his father from where he lay on his back in the far corner of the room, splayed out across the rug. No, not across it; next to it. Had he been lying across it, he might not have been able to get the corner of the rug so securely into his mouth.

Splinter crossed his arms over his robe. "My son. Why are you chewing on the rug?"

"Love Turble," Michelangelo garbled around the rough cloth. Splinter had to smile a little at his next to youngest's newest catchphrase, which he had finally deciphered to be a baby version of 'I love being a turtle'. Sometimes it seemed as though Michelangelo's love for the world and everything in it, or at least everything in eyesight, simply knew no bounds… which did not explain why he was isolated from his brothers this afternoon. Or why he was chewing on the carpet.

"Why are you by yourself, Michelangelo?" Splinter asked, leaning down to pick up his wandering child. Michelangelo chomped down hard on the rug and it took his father a long moment to separate them—when his mouth finally did come free, the little turtle's only answer was, "Raphi."

"Raphael? Did your brother send you away?" Splinter regarded his son with curious eyes, glancing between his open mouth and the rug with passing confusion. Michelangelo had always been a mouthy child—both in the sense of being talkative and in the sense of being eager to put anything on hand into his mouth. Still, he usually chose more appetizing targets than the rung.

Well, that wasn't the most important question in any case.

"Come, my son. Let us return to your brothers," Splinter said, turning back toward his other three children. "It is difficult for me to watch all of you if you stray from them."

"Uh oh!" Michelangelo cried, though he didn't seem at all upset. "Uh oh Raphi."

"Do not worry about Raphael," Splinter said firmly. But Michelangelo only laughed, clapping his small hands in some personal amusement.

Splinter's other sons were playing—not exactly together—on the other side of the living room. Although he was much too young to read, Donatello was flipping through a cloth book with pictures of baby animals. Leonardo was sitting beside his youngest brother and watching this activity with his typical serious manner as he puffed at his pacifier, and a little distance from them Raphael had taken possession of the animal toys, guarding them all inside the barricade of his arms. All three turtles looked up at Michelangelo's squeal, and Raphael's face darkened, puffing up with anger that flung a plastic lion at Splinter's oncoming feet.

"No Mikey!" he yelled, glaring up at his father with surprising vehemence. "No Mikey!"

"Raphael," Splinter admonished, setting Michelangelo down in the midst of his children and fixing the eldest turtle with a frown. "That is no way to speak to your brother. It is very unkind to isolate him as you have done."

"Raphi!" Michelangelo reached for his brother with wide, gleeful arms, but Raphael was having none of it, and he pushed Michelangelo in the face, knocking his brother back toward Donatello with all of his young strength.

"Raphael," Splinter scolded—but Michelangelo did not seem injured or even fazed, so he left it at that.

"Donny!" Michelangelo cried next, rolling onto his stomach.

"Go'way," Donatello moaned, hugging his book to his chest. Michelangelo's eyes flitted over to Leonardo, who watched Michelangelo with wary eyes before taking the pacifier out of his mouth and offering it to his next youngest brother. Michelangelo laughed and put the pacifier in his mouth—but it didn't stay long, as he spit it out and began a torrent of cooing nonsense instead.

Splinter watched them all with uncomprehending black eyes, his confusion only growing with each turtle's reaction. To say that Michelangelo never got on his brothers' nerves would have been a lie—and Raphael's short temper certainly put him at the top of the irritated list. But Donatello was a sweet child, especially with Michelangelo—for him to behave so forcefully toward his brother was rare indeed. And what had caused Leonardo's cautious attitude? If not exactly playmates, his two middle sons had always been close companions… what had Michelangelo done to ostracize himself this way?

It was not a minute of babbling at Donatello and Leonardo's turned backs before Michelangelo tired of being ignored, and he crawled back in Raphael's direction, earning another withering shove from his eldest brother. Michelangelo just waved. Then his impetuous little hand reached over the fence of Raphael's arms and snagged one of the animal toys.

"Love piggy," Michelangelo said, picking up a cow. He did not join in Raphael's game, however; instead he stuck the cow, head and all, into his mouth, compressing his lips as though trying to chew it.

"Michelangelo, do not eat that," Splinter said, reaching down to pluck the slimy animal out of his son's mouth. "Are you hungry? If you are hungry, we can eat lunch now…"

Michelangelo wasn't even listening to him. Instead he crawled closer to Raphael, earning a corresponding scoot backward from his brother.

"Love kitty," Michelangelo said, this time plucking the largest tiger out of the pile and putting it tail-first into his mouth. Raphael's expression darkened, if possible, even further. He reached out to shove Michelangelo again.

"No Mikey," he demanded, looking up at his father with troubled eyes. Splinter did not know what to do besides look back. Raphael pushed again, and this shove caught Michelangelo in the mouth, causing him to spit the tiger out and watch in passing fascination as it bounced across the carpet. For a moment, Splinter thought his next to youngest had finally tired of being shoved, because the little turtle turned on his stomach and began crawling away. But he didn't go any farther than even with Raphael's feet before he came to a stop, one curious hand reaching for his brother's ankle.

"Mikey—" Raphael began.

"Love Raphi," Michelangelo interrupted, grinning at his brother. Then he leaned down and chomped on Raphael's foot as hard as his toothless beak could manage, earning a wail of pain and surprise from the target of his sudden attack.

"Michelangelo!" Splinter gasped.

"Ow!" Raphael yelled—then his other foot came up and he kicked Michelangelo hard in the face, sending his younger brother skittering end over end toward the far side of the room. Leonardo and Donatello whipped around to watch his roll.

"Michelangelo!" In spite of Raphael's bitten foot, it was to his next to youngest that Splinter ran, picking the little turtle up and pressing softly across his face in search of serious damage. It was only when Michelangelo, apparently unhurt, made an effort to bite his hand that Splinter paused, considering his child with suddenly suspicious eyes.

"Michelangelo, could it be…" Splinter tapped Michelangelo's mouth open and slipped a finger inside, pressing down softly on the flesh of his gums. Michelangelo squawked and Splinter winced as he found something hard: a tiny spike along the bottom ridge of his jaw, unmistakable now that Splinter knew what to look for.

Raphael had recovered enough to shout, "No Mikey! No biting Mikey!"

"Oh, Michelangelo," Splinter sighed. Michelangelo smiled, his insatiable mouth far too congenial for a child cutting his first teeth. Splinter rubbed his forehead. Of all the things to be first at, why did Michelangelo have to be the first to teethe?

"It was my belief that teething made a child cry," Splinter said, looking in no small exasperation at his son. "Why are you only biting?"

"Love brudders!" Michelangelo said by way of answer. Splinter shook his head.

"A little too much today, my son. A little too much."

.x.

Michelangelo had a funny habit, Splinter had noticed. He liked to play with the television.

This was not a newly developed habit, by any means. It was just a habit Splinter hadn't pinned down until recently. The games had started much earlier. As a very young turtle, Michelangelo had quickly picked up the habit of talking to the television when there was no one else to talk to, which was part of the reason Splinter believed, that his next to youngest had become such a prolific talker at such a young age—or, if it was not talking exactly, then at least such a prolific mimicker of conversation with sound and inflection.

Michelangelo had also, early on in his association with the television, tried to follow the characters on the screen when they disappeared from view, peering in bewilderment around the side of the television in search of the vanished figures. Then he would crawl to whoever he was watching television with and told them, "Gone whoosh, gone whoosh," with an insistency that made Splinter smile but tended to irritate his disinterested brothers.

Michelangelo was older now—old enough to understand that the people on the television were not going to run off into the living room. Somehow, though, that hadn't stopped him from talking back to the appliance.

"So yester'ay, fer lunch, I ate a million Cheetos. A whole million!"

Splinter glanced up from the book he was reading to Raphael—Raphael who, unlike at least a few of his brothers, had not show much interest in being read to so far in his young life—to take stock of Michelangelo chatting cheerily with the television. The channel, which had earlier been tuned to a soap opera Splinter couldn't help enjoying, was now playing a moderately ancient movie in black and white—but Michelangelo didn't seem to care, sharing his account of the previous day with Humphrey Bogart as happily as he might have talked to Batman.

Splinter shook his head. It seemed counterintuitive at first, but among his children Michelangelo tended to be the least picky about what wound up on the screen in front of him. As long as he could talk to it, nothing else seemed to matter.

"Then what happened?" Raphael asked, tugging on his father's sleeve to draw Splinter's attention back to the book that the little turtle himself hadn't seemed interested in a few minutes before. Splinter nodded.

"Then the third Billy Goat Gruff came up to the bridge…"

"Wow! You like Cheetos, too?" Michelangelo asked Humphrey Bogart, clapping his hands at the stern sturdy face. "I'd get you some, but we ate them all already. Bummer, huh?"

"Shut up, Mikey!" Raphael called, glaring at his brother over the top of the book.

"Okay," Michelangelo called back, flopping onto his stomach. But either he'd never intended to keep his promise or he'd already forgotten making it, because not half a minute went by before he was speaking again, talking even louder over the boat motors that had suddenly taken over the movie. "An' then after the Cheetos, Donny n' I made a city with blocks n'played 'Zilla. 'Cept Donny never likes the 'Zilla part."

"Sensei," Raphael complained, looking up at his father through a pinched expression. "Make Mikey shut up."

Splinter sighed. "Michelangelo, will you turn the television down, please?" he asked, hoping the little turtle's voice would come down with the volume.

Michelangelo grinned. "Sure thing, Sensei." Then he lifted a hand and slapped the side of the television as hard as he could, sending lines of static across the screen. "Shut up, TV!" he said, striking it again. "Shut up!"

"Michelangelo!" Splinter scolded, setting Raphael and the book aside as he rushed for his third son's upraised hand. "Why are you hitting the television?"

Michelangelo blinked. "'Cuz that's what Raph does when he wants me to shut up." The little turtle struck himself in the head, imitating his brother's voice. "Shut up, Mikey! Shut up!"

Splinter looked back over his shoulder at his eldest son, his eyebrows bunching together above narrowed eyes. "Raphael?" he asked.

Raphael's face puffed up in anger and embarrassment, his cheeks flaring out as his name drifted into silence. Then he leapt off the couch and threw himself at Michelangelo, chasing his brother around the living room with both fists raised.

"Shut up, Mikey!"

"See?" Michelangelo crowed, vaulting the coffee table. "Told ya, Sensei!"

Splinter would have to catch them. He knew that. But before launching himself into that endeavor, the old rat took just a moment to rest his head in his hands, wondering not for the first time why Michelangelo was the first, the fastest and always unbeatable when it came to getting under Raphael's skin. And why getting under Raphael's skin always came with a beating.

_End Chapter 15_


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Moving into Mikey's section, the last one. It's absurdly long, though. Trust Mikey to keep running his mouth.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Shut up, Mikey!"_

"_See?" Michelangelo crowed, vaulting the coffee table. "Told ya, Sensei!"_

_Splinter would have to catch them. He knew that. But before launching himself into that endeavor, the old rat took just a moment to rest his head in his hands, wondering not for the first time why Michelangelo was the first, the fastest and always unbeatable when it came to getting under Raphael's skin. And why getting under Raphael's skin always came with a beating._

.x.

"Whoa! Look at all this cool stuff!"

With an explosion of kunai and a few throwing stars, Michelangelo popped his head up out of the box of ninja tools, his arms thrown wide in excitement.

"Lookie! It's all the off-limits stuff from home!"

"Michelangelo, do not play in there. Those things are off-limits here as well," Splinter scolded, reaching down to retrieve the explorative little turtle from the box of weapons. But no sooner had he that one in hand than a cry from the other side of the room demanded his attention, two exasperated black eyes turning to see Raphael and Leonardo engaged in one of their more common tug-of-wars.

"Leggo, Leo," Raphael snarled, yanking on Donatello's arm as hard as he could. "Donny wants to come into that weird old oven with me and get all black. Don'cha, Donny?"

"No, I don't," Donatello wailed, kicking one helpless foot at the unlit fire pit. "I don't wanna at all."

"Ah, you don't know what you want," Raphael scoffed.

From Donatello's other side, Leonardo gave a tremendous tug. "Leave him alone, Raph. He doesn't want to. And Sensei wouldn't want you to either."

"Sensei this, Sensei that. You ever gonna be anything but a copycat?" Raphael taunted. Then he was picked up roughly by the back of his shell, his face losing a little of its spirit as he stared into two unfamiliar black eyes.

"It is truly good to see you, Splinter. I only wish I had known of your coming beforehand, so I might have childproofed my house."

Michelangelo had a throwing star in his mouth, and Splinter sighed as he pulled it out, sending his next to youngest a warning glance before he set the little turtle back down. "I am sorry for all the trouble, Ancient One. They are not usually so ill-behaved."

Splinter glanced around once at the traditional house that had been so quiet before their coming, every beam and floorboard constructed of the memories of an earlier time. A happy time, too—a happier time than the time he now lived in, he wouldn't have said. The two were difficult to compare. Still, there was no denying that things had been calmer before the coming of his endearing but undeniably trying children.

"Put me down, old guy," Raphael demanded, kicking his feet.

"Raphael," Splinter warned, keeping half an eye on Michelangelo as he ran to join his brothers around the Ancient One's feet. "Do not speak to the Ancient One that way, my son."

"It is all right, Splinter." The Ancient One waved the old rat's concern away with his empty hand, jiggling Raphael a little as he smiled down on the other three turtles. "I remember what it was like to have kids. Though that was a terribly long time ago."

Splinter bowed his head in memory of the master whose death had brought them so far from home, but his children were more curious than reverent. Michelangelo blinked up to the strange man without a sliver of fear on his face, adeptly ducking Raphael's frustrated feet.

"You had kids, too, old guy?"

"Anshunt One," Leonardo hissed, pronouncing the name as best he could as he smacked his brother on the head.

"What's the difference?" Michelangelo wanted to know.

"Old's just old," Donatello explained, looking at the Ancient One from behind Leonardo's shoulder. "Anshunt means even older than old."

"Old as dirt," Raphael said, still swaying by his shell in the man's good-natured hand.

"My sons," Splinter began. But the Ancient One's chuckle cut him off, happy and full as he set his captive gently back down.

"Ah, don't mind them, Splinter. Kids will be kids." Raphael glared up at the Ancient One for a moment before retreating out of reach, backing up one step farther as the Ancient One settled himself cross-legged on the floor. "To answer your question, talkative turtle, Master Yoshi was like a son to me. I found him in his youth and raised him, much as your father has found and raised you."

The turtles gave a collective sigh of understanding, and then Donatello, who had so far been shy of this unknown person, shuffled forward a step. "Did you raise our sensei, too?" he asked, his small hands taking hold of Leonardo's arm.

The Ancient One smiled. "Well, your sensei was rather more of a rat then. I did not believe he needed raising. Besides that, he belonged to Tang Shen."

"Who's Tan Shen?" Leonardo asked, fumbling over the difficult name in spite of his best efforts.

"She was Master Yoshi's beloved," the Ancient One answered. "Splinter was their pet at that time."

"Oh," the children said, and Splinter could not help noticing that their eyes all flew to him, probably wrestling with the idea of their master being a pet. Splinter smiled.

"I was much smaller in those days," he said.

"That'd be cool!" Michelangelo sang out, scrunching his hands down until there was only a small gap between them. "Where you, like, this big, Sensei? Not even this big?"

Splinter shook his head. "Not quite as small as that."

Michelangelo was unperturbed. "Did you have a teeny tiny robe? And a teeny tiny house? And teeny tiny glasses to read teeny tiny books?"

"Knock it off with the nursery rhymes," Raphael growled, batting his brother's arm.

Splinter moved to rest a soft hand on Michelangelo's head. "I did not use glasses then, my son. I was much younger at that time."

Not that glasses would have assisted him in reading, in any case, before his transformation. But Michelangelo didn't know that; he only shook his head. "No way, Sensei—you were never young. You've been old forever."

Splinter and the Ancient One both had a fair chuckle at that, and the Ancient One rocked a little in his seat, his great face awash with lines of amusement. "Ah, Splinter. It is good that you have come. There is nothing quite like a child to make one forget the troubles that come with old age."

"Indeed, Ancient One. I have often thought the same myself." Splinter's face gained an aspect of shadow, and he stroked Michelangelo's shell with a softer hand, an aspect of serious consideration visible now in his dark eyes. "Without my children, I do not know that my mind would ever move from the presence of the Shredder in New York City."

The Ancient One bowed his head, in thought or sadness Splinter did not know. Their silence only made the little turtles more curious, and it was Leonardo who stepped forward to speak, his eyes shifting between his father and their host.

"Who is the Sh—the Shr—"

"The Shredder," Splinter said, helping his son past the difficult name, "is a terrible man who desires power and thinks nothing of hurting others to obtain it. He shows no mercy to those who impede his plans. As did my Master Yoshi."

The Ancient One nodded but did not speak. The four small turtles watched both adults for a moment before Michelangelo spoke up.

"Sounds like a bad dude," he said, scratching his neck. Then he broke into a grin, turning around to grab Donatello by the hands. "Come on, Donny. I've got a great game. Let's play Spitter and Shedder!"

Donatello blinked, as did Splinter. "Play what, my son?" he asked. Michelangelo laughed.

"Spitter and Shedder. You know, Shedder—that bad dude you were jus' talking about. And Spitter—that's you, Sensei. That's what the old guy's calling you."

"Splinter," Splinter corrected, trying not to smile.

"That's what I said," Michelangelo replied. "Come on, Donny. You can be Spitter and I'll be the big bad Shedder. It'll be the battle of a lifetime!"

"I don't wanna spit," Donatello protested, tearing up a little at the invitation. Michelangelo shrugged.

"Fine, then Leo can be Spitter. He's basically Spitter already."

"It's not Spitter," Leonardo cut in, his lips struggling over another complicated name. "It's Sp—Spli… and the Sh—red—"

"See? He's so terrifying you can't even say his name!" Michelangelo crowed, punching his fists into the air. "He's the best worst bad guy ever. The big bad Shedder!"

"Ha—I ain't scared a' no Shedder," Raphael boasted, arms crossed over his surly chest. "What's that, some kinda big cat? I could take 'im."

It was then that Splinter realized he was laughing—truly laughing from his stomach, with all of his breath, as he was not sure he had ever done before. Nor was he the only one. The Ancient One was chortling, too, his full body trembling with the force of his rolling amusement. The children watched them for a moment in surprise, and then Raphael pointed at them with triumphant fingers.

"See? Even Sensei n' the old guy ain't scared a' no Shedder."

"Not yet. But they will be!" Michelangelo shouted, curling his fingers into claws and leaping at Donatello. Donatello shrieked and ran and the others ran after him, and Splinter stayed where he was, wiping one sleeve across his warm black eyes.

He should have known Michelangelo would be the first to truly make him laugh.

.x.

"Your turn, Don."

"Okay. Here goes…"

Donatello reached out a small hand and flicked the spinner at the center of the board, squeezing his eyes shut as the plastic needle whipped around. As it lilted to a stop, there was a chorus of groans from his opponents, and Donatello cracked one eye open to see that the pointer had stopped even with a bunch of three cherries, the green arrow wiggling a little as Raphael slapped the board and set the cherries rattling in their places.

"Give me a break. Another three?"

"Nice, Donny," Leonardo remarked, nodding as his brother plucked three cherries carefully from his tree and dropped them into his bucket. "How many do you have now?"

"Seven," Donatello replied, counting the cherries again as a proud smile conquered his face.

Michelangelo flopped down onto his stomach beside Raphael, squinting at Donatello as he braced his chin against his hands. "How'd you do that, Don? Teach me your secret. You always get good rolls."

"Not as good as you, Mikey," Donatello said, leaning back on his hands. "You always get fours."

"Yeah, and then he always gets a spilled bucket right before he gets to ten," Raphael threw in, finding a smile again at his younger brother's expense. "That's Mikey's luck for you."

"Why, cherry god?" Michelangelo demanded, shaking his fist at the concrete ceiling with a passion inspired by his siblings' attention. "What did I do to deserve your eternal punishment? I've never even ate a cherry!"

"Eaten," said Donatello, crossing his arms over his chest. "And you have so. You used to eat the cherries for this game all the time. That's why Leo's tree has marbles now."

"Oh, yeah. Maybe that was it." Michelangelo rolled over onto his back, upsetting Raphael's bucket with the whimsical motion as he reached out to take a drink of his soda. "Didn't taste like cherries, though."

"Hey, lamebrain! Watch it!" Raphael snapped, struggling to contain his escaping cherries in fingers that occasionally lacked the coordination required for children's games. "You knocked my bucket!"

"If you've never eaten cherries, how do you know these ones didn't taste like them?" Leonardo asked, ignoring Raphael but watching Michelangelo with steady, curious eyes. Michelangelo blinked.

"Huh." The little turtle eyed his own basket of cherries, and then shot a lightning-quick hand toward the tokens that Raphael was still struggling to retrieve—but a certain gray hand was even faster, and it arrested his wrist before he could get the cherries into his grasp, drawing Michelangelo's startled eyes and half-open mouth up toward his father's exasperated face.

"My sons, are you certain you are not ready for bed yet?" Splinter asked, reflecting as he pried the cherries from Michelangelo's still reaching hand that parenthood had given him far better reflexes than martial arts training ever did. Even after a long day—and had it ever been a long day—he could get out of his rocking chair and across the room to interrupt his children's loud and rather boisterous game of Hi Ho Cherry-O before disaster struck.

Well, more than the usual amount of disaster, in any case.

"Nope. I'm wide awake, actually," Michelangelo told him cheerfully, his fingers still lunging toward the elusive cherries. "I could go all night, I think. We should have a 24-hour Cherry-o Marathon. Winner gets to eat one."

"Mikey, nobody wants to eat one but you," Donatello said, cradling his basket between his hands so his brother couldn't get at it.

"You're missing out," Michelangelo replied, his second hand darting forward only to be caught like the first. "Looks like I'll get all the cherry goodness to myself."

"But you said they _didn't_ taste like cherries," Leonardo protested.

"Ah, forget Mikey," Raphael growled. He had managed to scoop a handful of cherries back into his bucket, but Splinter had a feeling that his eldest had not counted them—especially because there seemed to be fewer cherries in Michelangelo's tree now than before the accident. The old rat wondered if that were intentional but chose not comment, in part because his eldest was still talking. "He'll eat anything that looks like food."

"Yeah—Raph doesn't even limit himself to that," Michelangelo cut in, finally ceasing his squirming on account of the fact that all but Leonardo's marbles had disappeared. "Remember that one time when he ate a bowl of green construction paper?"

"That was yesterday," Donatello said, rolling his expressive eyes.

"You told me it was cabbage!" Raphael snapped.

"I told you it was cabbage for the salad bowl at Tony the Tiger and the bobble-head duck's joint birthday party. I didn't tell you to eat it." Raphael growled and swiped at Michelangelo and Splinter didn't have a hand to stop him, but Michelangelo had been an expert dodger ever since he learned to talk—primarily because the day he learned to talk was the day he started testing Raphael's temper. "Not that you cared at the time," Michelangelo added, grinning up at his eldest brother.

Raphael ground his lips together for a moment, as though stewing over his comeback—then he settled for a grunt, his eyes flicking to one side at the undeniable accusation. "It didn't taste any different from normal cabbage," he grumbled, earning a raised eyebrow from his father and a shared glance between Donatello and Leonardo. Michelangelo just laughed at him.

"Hey, guess what, everybody! Raph's tongue is as dumb as the rest of him!"

"I'll show you dumb," Raphael growled, cracking his knuckles. Somehow, Michelangelo didn't seem to be intimidated.

"No need, Raph. I'm looking at dumb right now!" Then Michelangelo had the wisdom to duck, as Raphael dove into a tackle that even his father's hands could not prevent, knocking into Donatello on his way down and sending all of the cherries skittering across the floor.

"Hey! My cherries!" the youngest turtle shouted.

"Raph, you're making a mess," Leonardo said, leaning forward to grab his elder brother's shell and struggling to pull Raphael off of Michelangelo. Splinter had no choice but to let go of Michelangelo's wrists to get control of his other children, two of whom were rapidly moving from scuffle to full-out fight.

"Raphael, Leonardo, that is enough—"

"They're mine!" Michelangelo crowed, leaping—literally—at his sudden freedom and after the cherries that were once again in reach. All eyes shot to Michelangelo as the little turtle snatched a cherry by the stem and held it victoriously over his mouth, which was open wide in the biggest smile his jaw would permit.

"Michelangelo!" Splinter scolded, his arms full of squirming turtles.

"My cherries!" Donatello cried.

Arms outstretched, the youngest turtle ran for his brother, desperate to prevent the loss of one of his hard-won prizes. But he tripped over the legs that Leonardo and Raphael had not been careful with when they descended into their tussle, and then swiftly lost his footing, careening out of control toward the back of Michelangelo's elated head.

"Donatello!" Splinter gasped.

There was no stopping him now. Donatello smashed into Michelangelo from behind and the hand that had been preparing the cherry for descent jumped into Michelangelo's mouth ahead of schedule, setting the little turtle to choking as he toppled to the ground and Donatello toppled with him, crushing Splinter's worst troublemaker with a squeal of surprise.

Raphael and Leonardo's conflict was forgotten as the rest of the family raced over to the scrabbling pile, and Splinter gritted his teeth to ward off the headache he had no hand to deal with as he struggled to pull his two youngest apart. Michelangelo coughed and gagged as he clawed his way out from under Donatello, assisted by one hand each from his older brothers—then the little turtle clutched his neck with two terrified hands, staring up at his father with eyes so wide Splinter almost thought they might fall out.

"I swallowed it, Sensei!"

"No, Mikey! Why?" Donatello demanded, curling back into his master's arms with the first brush of tears lingering in his eyes. "Why would you do that?"

"I didn't mean to!" Michelangelo protested, hands still fixed in horror around his throat as his eyes swerved around in search of his soda. "I was just gonna taste it, I swear. But it fell in when you knocked me over and—"

"And you swallowed?" Raphael cut in, delivering a sharp slap to the back of Michelangelo's head.

"It was instinct! Total instinct! Leo, help me out," Michelangelo said, turning to Leonardo and gesturing frantically at his neck. "Do you see anything? Any cherry-shaped bulges? Any bulges at all?"

"That only happens in cartoons, Mikey," Leonardo replied, though Splinter did not miss the way his second son's eyes moved quickly back and forth over his younger brother's neck. "There's nothing there."

"So it's somewhere inside, and we don't know what it's doing? It could be up to anything! Who knows what the cherry god has planned now that he's got one of his agents on the inside!" Michelangelo clutched his head. "I could be taken over by cherry brainwaves any second now!"

"Knock it off, psycho," Raphael said, looking like he wanted to give Michelangelo another blow to the head. "You swallowed a lump a' plastic. That can't be even the fifth weirdest thing you've ever put in your mouth."

But Michelangelo would not calm down—although Splinter suspected, as he often did with his third son, that the theatrics were somehow more fun for Michelangelo than he was letting on. Michelangelo ran to his father and latched onto one of his arms, badly miffing Donatello who was still monopolizing Splinter's embrace.

"Am I gonna die, Sensei? Are they going to have to operate? Am I going to suffer cherry intake complications?"

Splinter wondered where Michelangelo had learned words like 'intake' and complication,' and whether he knew what they meant. He didn't ask. He just put a hand to his head and gave Michelangelo the sternest look he could manage in the face of the little turtle's panic, keeping his voice level in spite of the ebbing patience that wanted to interfere with his tone.

"Michelangelo. You are going to be fine. As long as you are not having any difficulty breathing, there is no reason to worry."

"Difficulty breathing. Nope, don't got that." Then Michelangelo paused, his worried hands slipping down to rest over his chest as he reconsidered. "Do I?"

Splinter sighed. "If you were having difficulty breathing, my son, you would also be having difficulty talking. And I can see that this is not a problem for you."

"When is it ever," Raphael scoffed, and for once Leonardo only rolled his eyes, as much of an agreement as he and Raphael ever came to. Donatello, on the other hand, didn't seem as interested in Michelangelo's plight as he was in the cherries that lay in massacre all across the rug, thrown from the game board and his overturned bucket in an attitude of great desertion.

"How could you, Mikey?" he repeated, gathering what was left of the cherries into his hands. "Now we'll never have a complete game again!"

"Donny, I just swallowed a plastic cherry—I could by dying of lead poisoning!" Michelangelo cried, waving his arms over his head as whatever calm Splinter had been trying to restore vanished from his rising voice. "Where's the box? Was this game made in China? Oh, no—I think I feel the paint seeping into my bloodstream!"

"I think," Splinter cut in, resting two firm, steady hands on his next to youngest's shoulders, "that you have all been up entirely too long, and that it is past time for bed. Please pick up your game and brush your teeth. We have had quite enough cherries for the night."

Donatello's jaw dropped open, as indignant as the hands pressing the rest of the cherries to his plastron. "But I was winning!"

"And you have already won thrice tonight," Splinter continued, not sparing even his youngest from the stern look that was making the rounds to catch each of his children's faces in turn. "It is time for bed. Do as I ask, please, all of you."

Donatello's face puffed up at the rebuke—the closest his father ever really came to chastising his most sensitive child—and then he threw the cherries back at the game board, running toward the bathroom without waiting to help clean up. But it was not a careful run, and Michelangelo's soda had gotten between the little turtle and his destination—so it was that without thought, intention or a backward glance, Donatello crashed into his brother's soda and knocked it over, drenching the carpet and the edge of the game board in the deep brown cola.

"Hey! My soda!" Michelangelo shouted.

"Serves you right!" Donatello called back, before he disappeared into the bathroom.

"Donatello!" But Donatello heeded his father's voice no more than Michelangelo's, and in the end Splinter was left only with a sharpening headache and a scowl for the newest stain on an already tired carpet, and the newest annoyance on the shoulders of an already tired rat.

"Why do I have to clean up everybody's messes," Raphael grumbled, picking up the soda can and heading for the kitchen. Leonardo had run for the kitchen, too, and the two turtles narrowly avoided clipping each other as Leonardo raced back into the living room, throwing himself down with a flurry of dishrags.

"Oh, no, it got the game, too…"

"The game? Who cares about the game? That was my soda!" Michelangelo said, stomping his foot. "And just when I needed it to cure my impending doom from lead-based cherry paints!"

Splinter tried not to frown at his next to youngest child. "Michelangelo, help your brother clean up."

"Sure, in a minute," Michelangelo said, heading toward the returning figure of Raphael with a shrug. "I just gotta get another soda first."

"You will not have another soda," Splinter said, stopping Michelangelo in his tracks with the arrest of his headband straps. "It was too close to bedtime for you to be having a soda in the first place, and you will certainly not have another right before you brush your teeth. Now help Leonardo pick up."

"But Donny spilled mine! I didn't get to finish it!" Michelangelo protested, struggling to get away from his father. Splinter decided the headband was too loose a grip on Michelangelo and moved down to grab the little turtle's shoulders, steering him back toward Hi Ho Cherry-O.

"Yes. And that is unfortunate, but that is what sometimes happens when we are not careful where we put our sodas. Help your brothers clean up and go to bed. That is final."

"I don't wanna! I don't wanna!" Michelangelo howled, a phrase he had borrowed, it seemed, from his youngest brother. But no amount of whining was going to change Splinter's steel grip on his shoulders, so Michelangelo found himself on the floor with a dishrag a moment later, wiping soda from the warping game board. Raphael and Leonardo shared another look—one that, thankfully, came without words or argument—before they set to work cleaning up, Raphael taking over the soda removal as Leonardo packed up the game board.

Michelangelo stopped working every so often to whine about poisoning, and to ask one of his brothers if his tongue was turning green. Raphael told him yes once, in what Splinter assumed was an attempt to be funny, and the hysteria that followed in the wake of that answer was enough to make the old rat wonder if an extra round of sit-ups the next day would be too harsh a punishment for his eldest's loose tongue.

It seemed like forever to Splinter before he got all four of the children into the bed they still shared with him, tucking the covers carefully around Donatello and soothing the little turtle, still upset, with a calm, collected hand. Michelangelo was still in a foul mood, and that mood seemed to have infected the rest of the family—Raphael's attempt to start a pillow fight with anyone who would compete was fiercer than usual tonight, and only barely offset by the image of Leonardo trying to mimic his father and tuck Michelangelo in the way Donatello had been settled, and inadvertently fixing the blanket over his brother's ceaseless mouth.

In the end, half an hour later as he slipped out of the darkened bedroom, Splinter decided that perhaps he had broken even today—halfway between bliss and insanity. It was not an uncommon place to be, at the end of the day.

Of course, Splinter's day did not end when his children's did. There were still dishes in the sink, toys all over the living room, a soda stain to get out and the remains of an unfortunate fingerpaint accident coloring his kitchen chairs—and with the memory of the chores that his sons, wilder than usual today, had prevented him from completing for so long, Splinter decided the scale was tipped perhaps half a degree closer to insanity than usual.

Half a degree was not so much, he supposed.

Cleaning had become somewhat therapeutic for Splinter over the years, especially if he was cleaning after his children had gone to bed, which was undoubtedly a blessing considering how much of it had to be done. So it was with a slightly calmer temper and a slowly lessening headache that Splinter turned around from his work at the sink to see Michelangelo creeping toward the refrigerator perhaps fifteen minutes later, all his ninja stealth wasted on his father's accidental backward glance.

Michelangelo froze. Then he stepped backward and pressed himself against the wall, his eyes fixed decisively on the refrigerator as though avoiding his master's eyes could divert the old rat's attention from the child who had not stayed in his bed.

Splinter crossed his arms, choosing not to marvel at this moment over how silent Michelangelo could actually be when he was trying. "Michelangelo. What are you doing out of bed?"

Michelangelo's gaze shifted quickly to Splinter, and then it shot back to the refrigerator, his voice a whisper hidden from no one. "Code red. Security may have noticed the disturbance in the force. Retreat, Red Leader…"

"Michelangelo."

Michelangelo looked up at his father, his eyes so wide that Splinter might have mistaken his expression for one of innocence, if he weren't so obviously up and about against the rules. "I'm not here, Master Splinter."

Splinter raised an eyebrow. "You are not?"

Michelangelo shook his head. "Nope. You just fell asleep on the kitchen table again. In ten minutes, Leo's gonna come wake you up 'cause Donny's whining about you being gone, and you'll realize this was all a dream."

"And what kind of a dream is this?" Splinter asked, reaching behind him to turn off the faucet.

"Pretty standard," Michelangelo said, leaning back against the wall with his hands behind his head. "Any minute now aliens or giant robots are gonna break down that wall, and Raph's gonna start tap dancing dressed up like a big cherry. Actually, the only thing that's not happening in your dream is me. I'm not in your dream."

"And what aren't you doing in my dream?" Splinter pressed, taking a few steps closer to his third son.

"I'm not sneaking to the fridge to get a soda way after we're allowed to have them," Michelangelo answered, inching toward the appliance in question with a tremendous smile on his face. "See, Sensei? This is me, _not_ heading for the fridge. This is me _not_ opening the fridge," he continued, keeping his eyes on his master as one hand found the door handle. "This is me _not_ getting away with my soda," he finished, taking a step toward the door with the cola in hand.

"That you certainly are not," Splinter put in, extending his cane to trap the impish little creature in the kitchen. "You know you are not allowed to have soda around bedtime, Michelangelo."

"Oh, don't worry, Sensei," Michelangelo assured him, not even bothering to hide the soda as he made to duck around the cane and found himself squarely blocked again. "I know all about not having soda before bed. It keeps you up. That'd be a stupid thing to do."

"Indeed it would," Splinter said, his voice a little drier for the patience that was quickly leaving him again.

"But it's okay," Michelangelo added quickly, "because I'm not going to bed. I'm going to go watch The Empire Strikes Back on late-night television. I mean, that's what I'm not going to do. Because this is a dream. And that's what I'm not doing, in your dream."

"It is what you are not doing at all," Splinter told him firmly, finally tiring of the game of limbo between Michelangelo and his cane and reaching out to pull the soda out of his most trying son's hands. Michelangelo gasped, jumping as high as he could in an attempt to retrieve the can.

"Master! You can't do that! That's my not soda that I don't have!"

Splinter did his best to suppress his sigh, and then he did his best to suppress his headache, recognizing not for the first time that Donatello was not the only one who got cranky if he didn't go to bed on time—Splinter himself was prone to an unusual level of irritation when a long day simply refused to end.

"Michelangelo. That is enough. You are not having a soda, and you are not going to watch a movie. You are going to bed. Now."

Splinter put the soda back in the refrigerator and steered the little turtle out of the room, heading down the hall toward the bedroom where the other three seemed to have stayed. Michelangelo dug his heels into the carpet, bracing impetuous little hands against the wall to halt their progress.

"But I need that soda, Sensei! I need to get the lead out of my mouth! Otherwise I'll wake up in the morning with chemical burns all over my tongue."

"There is no lead in your mouth," Splinter said, surprised and aggravated once again by the strength of resistance Michelangelo conjured up whenever he wasn't getting his way. "It is far past your bedtime, Michelangelo. Please stop being difficult."

"I'm not being difficult. I'm just looking out for my safety!" Michelangelo replied, performing, to Splinter's annoyance, a perfect leg sweep on his master's cane and darting back toward the kitchen faster than Splinter could catch him. He wasn't fast enough to make it out of the room with his prize before Splinter caught up, however—which left them face to face in front of the refrigerator again, and Splinter wondering whether the last five minutes of his life had been completely wasted.

"Michelangelo. Put the soda back," Splinter ordered, stifling a wince as the headache flared behind his temples again.

Michelangelo gave a long-suffering sigh, leaning back against the refrigerator with an impatient expression. "Master Splinter, aren't you getting tired of this?"

Splinter sighed as well. "Yes, my son. I am getting very tired of this."

"Then let's compromise. You can go to bed, and I'll just do whatever I want. How's that for a deal?" Michelangelo suggested, extending his little hand for a shake. "That'd be easier on both of us."

"Unfortunately, Michelangelo, it is not that simple," Splinter replied. "You must go to bed."

Michelangelo clicked his tongue. "No, Sensei—you missed the part where I get to do whatever _I_ want to do. Your ears must be getting tired, too."

Splinter's ears were getting tired. So was his pulsing head. But most of all, so was his patience, which had, perhaps, never come quite this close to breaking.

"Michelangelo. You are not listening to me. It is past your bedtime, and I am very tired. Please go back to bed immediately."

"Gee, Sensei," Michelangelo said, leaning back on his heels. "Sounds like it's past your bedtime, not mine." Then he flicked the soda open and leaned it back in preparation for a drink, his lips still turned decidedly up at the corners.

Splinter had had quite enough of that.

With reflexes that had only been getting better, Splinter's hand shot out and took hold of the soda can, jerking it up and out of his son's grip with a motion so tight that not a drop touched the rim. Michelangelo gasped and reached after it, indignation overtaking his usually good-natured features.

"Hey! That's my—"

"It is not," Splinter interrupted, looking down at his son with eyes that had lost all of their tolerance. "You are not allowed to have this, as you already know, and you will not be allowed to misbehave simply because you would like to do so. We keep rules for a reason, Michelangelo, and the reason for this rule is because soda before bed is not good for you. Nor is staying up all night watching a movie, when you watch more than enough television as it is. I will not tell you again. You will go to bed, my son, and you will go to bed now."

"I won't!" Michelangelo cried, not bothering to restrain the volume of his voice. "I wanna have soda and watch my movie! Give it back, Sensei!"

"Michelangelo—"

But the name didn't help, because Michelangelo, in finding that he could not reach the soda no matter how he jumped, had chosen a different option—and this time as he launched himself from the floor, he grabbed Splinter's arm, attempting to pull it down. Splinter jerked his arm away, hoping to dislodge the little turtle, and dislodge him he did—but he lost control of the soda can at the same moment, and it toppled down onto Michelangelo's head, covering him with soda and sending a resounding clank of skull meets metal throughout the kitchen.

"Ow!" Michelangelo cried, holding his head as he sat on the floor, covered in sticky sugar water. "Why'd you do that, Sensei?"

Splinter had lost control of his expression. "I did nothing, Michelangelo. And I have had more than enough of this. You are going to bed, and you are going to bed this instant, do you understand? There will be no television and no soda for the rest of this week, and longer if you do not learn to behave. You are not an infant anymore—there is no excuse for you acting this way, and it is not behavior I will tolerate in the future. Is that clear? Is that clear, my son?"

But Michelangelo didn't get to answer—no more than his great wide eyes were an answer—because at that moment a cacophony of footsteps hurtled down Splinter's hallway and cascaded into the kitchen, belonging to three very awake and very agitated little turtles who surrounded their brother from all sides, Raphael jumping into the front to shield Michelangelo with his arms outstretched.

"Stop yelling, Sensei!" Raphael shouted, looking up at his father with brave, angry eyes. "You can't yell at Mikey! You gotta stop that right now!"

"No, Daddy," Donatello joined in, flinging his arms around Michelangelo's shoulders. "No more yelling." Leonardo didn't say anything, but his eyes were proof enough that he agreed with his brothers, meeting his master's startled gaze with determination and concern.

Splinter took a step back at the sudden invasion, a hand coming up to brush at his forehead. "I… I was not yelling, my sons…"

"Yeah, you were!" Raphael accused, still standing strong in front of his brothers. "We heard you all the way from the bedroom. You can't do that! Mikey's a moron but that doesn't mean you get to yell at him! Look at him!"

And Splinter did look, with newly clear eyes at his third son, still frozen in the puddle of soda, rubbing the fresh bump on his head as he looked up at his father with great, wide eyes.

"Are you okay, Mikey?" Donatello asked, his voice quivering a little with sympathy for his soda-covered brother. Leonardo shook his head.

"Yelling's not okay, Sensei. You tell Raph that all the time."

Splinter's hand dropped to his mouth, joining in his efforts to hold back the temper that even clearer sight hadn't yet conquered. "This was… this was different, Leonardo. I did not want to yell at Michelangelo, but your brother was not behaving and he would not listen to me…"

Splinter wondered for a moment why he was in the position of trying to explain himself to a child—one of his own children. But his explanation just made Leonardo shake his head again, reaching back to put a steadying hand on Michelangelo's arm. "Everybody can be difficult, Sensei. But yelling isn't the right way to solve our problems. Yelling only hurts people. No matter what, yelling is the wrong choice."

It took Splinter a moment to recognize his own words in Leonardo's voice, in the words that his son had been able to remember—and then for the first time in a long time, Splinter felt ashamed, because shame was the emotion that always came with failing to live in line with the standards he believed in. With a softening frown, the old rat got down onto his knees, looking past Raphael's glare and Leonardo's set jaw and Donatello's arms to catch Michelangelo's wet, waiting eyes.

"Michelangelo. I am very sorry for yelling at you. I should not have lost my temper with you. Will you forgive me for that?"

Michelangelo's face had lost its surprise, along with the tiny sliver of fear his raised voice had inspired—instead there was a smile on his next to youngest's face, which only brightened as he freed himself of the copse of his brothers and came forward to give Splinter a hug, pressing drops of soda into his father's warm robe.

"Ah, don't worry about it, Sensei. I know even you've gotta make mistakes sometimes. I mean, not everybody can be perfect like Mikey."

"A perfect mess," Raphael muttered under his breath, and Leonardo elbowed him—but Splinter ignored him, ignored them both, because he would not soon forget how quickly all of his children ran to Michelangelo's rescue, in spite of how he had irritated them all not long before bed in the midst of Hi Ho Cherry-O.

It was a power, Splinter knew: the power to get so deep into someone that they could not let you alone for a moment, that they would rush to your defense whenever you needed it. It was a power that went hand in hand with Michelangelo's almost immeasurable ability to get under others' skin—and hand in hand with how quick he was to forgive, when getting under their skin had brought consequences along with it.

"Come, my son," Splinter said, regaining his feet and taking Michelangelo's hand. "Let us clean this soda off. Then perhaps, as we are all awake, it would not be such a terrible thing to watch a little of Master Yoda and Darth Vader."

"Awesome!" Michelangelo cried, throwing a fist into the air. "Bath time and then TV time! The Empire Strikes Back!"

"I'm staying up, too!" Raphael shouted, racing toward the living room and vaulting the back of the couch. "Han Solo's awesome in this movie."

"I like C-3PO," Donatello said, following his eldest brother. Leonardo did the same, though with rather more of a frown.

"I don't like this one as much. It's not got the best character in it."

"That's just 'cause Leo likes Boring-One Kinobi!" Michelangelo teased, trying to follow his brothers before Splinter caught his shoulder and tilted his head toward the bathroom. Michelangelo grinned. "Oh, right. Bath first."

Splinter nodded. "Yes, my son. Bath first."

"Race ya, Sensei!" Michelangelo cried, whooping as he preceded his father down the hallway. Then he stopped abruptly, turning around to face Splinter with that same impish smile on his face. "So… can I have a soda while we watch?"

Splinter shook his head, knowing that Michelangelo had already taken his thin smile for an affirmation. That was Michelangelo, after all—the first to try the patience of others, and the first one to break it, and the first one to mend whatever ties had been strained in the course of his antics. And then, of course, the first one to try their patience again. But Splinter didn't mind as much as he should have—because although as he occasionally thought Michelangelo had been sent to test his dedication to patience and composure, there was something about the lively little turtle that made Splinter sure he could not have lived life without him.

_End Chapter 16_


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Moving into Mikey's section, the last one. It's absurdly long, though. Trust Mikey to keep running his mouth.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Splinter shook his head, knowing that Michelangelo had already taken his thin smile for an affirmation. That was Michelangelo, after all—the first to try the patience of others, and the first one to break it, and the first one to mend whatever ties had been strained in the course of his antics. And then, of course, the first one to try their patience again. But Splinter didn't mind as much as he should have—because although as he occasionally thought Michelangelo had been sent to test his dedication to patience and composure, there was something about the lively little turtle that made Splinter sure he could not have lived life without him._

.x.

He had been trouble, though. There was certainly no denying that. From his endless energy to his undying interest in getting his own way, Michelangelo had certainly been a handful at times—more of a handful, on occasion, than Splinter truly knew what to do with.

Splinter looked down at the pictures again, following with his eyes and his gentle smile the great motion that still possessed the figures in Michelangelo's drawings, although the crayon behind their creation had stopped moving long ago. His next to youngest. It was the playfulness that had always been apparent in Michelangelo's actions, he thought, that made him consider this son as third. He was immature in a way Donatello never had been, but free-spirited and self-sufficient in a way that Donatello, even now, was not. And at the very same moment, he was so caught up in the dynamics of his family—of his brothers—that it was impossible to imagine him without them, and Splinter knew he would never be happy alone.

He never had been, not even for short periods of time. Splinter shook his head as he looked down at the pictures in his arms—all of the pictures, now, every one rescued from the trials of his broken floor—and had to smile at the memory of Michelangelo's most trying days. The one thing he had never been able to stand, as a child or as an adult, was the feeling of exclusion, and Splinter was not without memories of that—of the explosive temper tantrums that came with any feeling, on Michelangelo's part, that his brothers did not want him.

.x.

"Here we go. It all comes down to this. Winner takes it all—loser takes it all out."

From his place across from Michelangelo, Leonardo rolled his eyes, shifting his feet in waning patience at the dramatic announcement. "I already said I'd take it all out, Mikey. Why are we doing this?"

"For the rush, Leo!" Michelangelo replied, grinning at his brother and sparing a smile, too, for Raphael, standing with arms crossed at his elbow. "The challenge! The thrill of defeating a worthy opponent!"

"A worthy opponent at rock paper scissors?" Leonardo asked, his voice losing a little more of its serenity.

"Leo, it's not about the battleground. It's about the victory!" Michelangelo told him, slinging two excited hands into the air.

"Sheesh, Mikey. If yer mouth wasn't so big, maybe there'd be room for some brains in your skull," Raphael said, nudging the bagged garbage beside them with one foot. "You wanna risk actually having to take this stuff down to the junction? Just let Leo do it, like he always does. He gets nervous if he doesn't get his daily dose of sucking up."

"And I guess breaking the rules comes with a 'take once daily' sticker, huh, Raph?" Leonardo shot back, sparing his older brother a passing glare before he bent to grab the trash bags. "Whatever. I'm just taking these out. I want to get back to practicing."

"No way, Leo!" Michelangelo protested, halting his brother with two hands on his shoulders. "You can't get sucked into the system like that! You're letting corporate bureaucracy control your life! If you give in now, you'll never be anything more than that guy in the far cubicle who doesn't get to take lunch 'cause he's stuck copying other people's papers!"

"I'll be what?" Leonardo asked.

"Taken advantage of. A victim of inequality in the workplace," Michelangelo explained, clenching his fist at the very suggestion. "One more slave to the invincible corporate machine."

"What've you been watching?" Raphael wanted to know, his forehead a mask of mounting confusion.

Across the room, from his momentarily stationary position halfway through folding a basket of laundry, Splinter shook his head. Michelangelo had been watching Sixty Minutes—but if he hadn't come into the living room in time to catch the tail end of a news story about stress in the workplace, he would have been just as confused as Raphael.

Leonardo frowned for a moment as he tried to process Michelangelo's typically random statements of opposition; then he crossed his arms over his chest, giving his brother a look that Splinter recognized perhaps a little too well.

"Mikey, are you saying you want to take the trash out?"

"No way!" Michelangelo said, shaking his head almost sadly as his hands dropped from Leonardo's shoulders. "This isn't about who takes the trash out, Leo. This is about fairness, about equality. I thought, out of everybody, at least you would understand that."

"Oh, fer cryin' out loud," Raphael grumbled, kicking a sack of garbage again.

Leonardo sighed. "Okay, Mikey. If it really means that much to you." So saying the young turtle dropped his arms and stuck out one hand, fisted in the rock starting position. Michelangelo grinned.

"All right! Take that, Corporate America," he cheered, extending a similar fist. Then the two moved their hands up and down, counting off together.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Raphael snorted. Splinter shook his head. And Leonardo raised an eyebrow at the three, not two, hands extended into the playing field, one each in rock, paper and scissors. "Mikey," he said, withdrawing his scissors.

"Huh?" Michelangelo asked, beaming in spite of the rock and paper still waiting to be withdrawn to his side.

Leonardo frowned at him. "You're cheating. You put out two hands instead of one."

"And you're a moron," Raphael cut in, bopping Michelangelo on the head. "If you put out rock and paper and he puts out scissors, then nobody wins."

"Oh yeah," Michelangelo said, pulling one hand back to smack his forehead. "How could I miss that? Here, let me try again, Leo."

"That isn't the point," Leonardo said, glaring at them both. "I thought you said this was about equality, Mikey."

"It is!" Michelangelo assured him, his arms slinging back to rest behind his head. "But I don't want to take the trash out. I'm just not taking any chances."

"This is so stupid," Leonardo muttered, leaning down to pick up the trash bags. Then he hauled them over his shoulder and stalked out of the room, the piece of metal that served as Splinter's front door banging closed behind him.

"Dude, what's wrong with him?" Michelangelo asked, then quickly amended his question with an "ow!" as Raphael made liberal use of his hand to the back of his younger brother's head.

"You, Mikey. You could drive a rock crazy."

"You mean Leo's not a rock?" Michelangelo asked, and Splinter could hear Raphael chuckling at little at that, which only made the old rat shake his head as he set to folding the towels, deciding in his mind that it was really no wonder Leonardo lost his patience with the two of them on such a regular basis.

"Perhaps you two would like to assist your brother in finishing the chores," Splinter suggested over his shoulder, searching in vain for a match to the cobalt sock on his lap. Raphael and Michelangelo exchanged a look.

"I'm good, thanks. And Raph never does any chores."

"Hey! I do more than Donny," Raphael said, crossing his arms over his chest. Michelangelo laughed.

"That's just 'cause Leo does all Donny's chores for him. Otherwise you'd still be losing."

"Ah, shut it." Then Raphael paused, the hand that was eager to start a fight hesitating beside his ear, and glanced around the room in search of the last member of the family. "Hey come to think of it, where is Donny? He's been out of sight for days."

"He's messing with something in that room at the end of the hall. He wouldn't let me in, either—said I had to stay out of his space."

"What's that about?" Raphael wanted to know. "That's nobody's space."

If Raphael and Michelangelo had been watching their father at that moment, they might have noticed how he stilled halfway through a folded towel, and how his eyes slid back to them with the shadow of an unmade decision resting in them—but they did not, because Raphael was waiting for an answer and Michelangelo was busy giving one.

"No, this is a good sign, Raph. Him not letting me in means he's making something for me—like maybe he's finally working on that flying skateboard I've been bugging him about for a month." Michelangelo's eyes brightened at the thought, alight with the same energy that shot his hands out to the side, wavering as though he were keeping his balance on an invisible board. "That thing's gonna be so awesome. I can use it to get at those throwing stars Sensei keeps on the top shelf—"

"I can hear you, Michelangelo."

"—and at bedtime, I won't have to climb the ladder to get to my bunk. I can just zip right up."

"Oh, yeah? Well, then what're you gonna do with it, lamebrain?" Raphael asked, forking his thumb over one shoulder at the bunk beds stacked in the far corner of the room. "It can't hover up there all night."

"That's easy, Raph," Michelangelo said, giving his brother a thousand-watt smile. "I'm gonna put it in your bed."

"And where am I supposed to sleep, huh?" Raphael demanded.

Michelangelo laughed. "You can bunk with Leo."

"Hey!"

That led to a tackle, and the tackle led to a skirmish, so that when Leonardo returned from his chores a few minutes later Splinter was in the process of deciding whether it was worth extricating himself from the kitchen towels to break up their squabble before Raphael and Michelangelo tumbled any further in his direction and overturned the piles of folded laundry. Leonardo spared him the trouble, as he often did, stepping in front of his brothers and crossing his arms over his chest.

"What are you guys fighting about now?" he asked, his voice distinctly dry.

"Raph doesn't want to bunk with you!" Michelangelo sang out, seemingly unconcerned about his position at the bottom of the pile. Leonardo shook his head.

"What are you talking about, Mikey? Nobody's bunking with anybody—we all have our own beds."

Again Splinter straightened in his seat, slightly disconcerted by the turn in his children's conversation; still they noticed nothing, preoccupied as usual by Michelangelo's overpowering voice.

"Well, sure—we do now. But we won't anymore, once my flying skateboard gets Raph's bed."

"I never said I was okay with that!" Raphael interjected, taking a step back toward the beds as though proximity could protect his space from Michelangelo's claims. Leonardo frowned.

"Why don't you keep it in your own bed?" he asked. Michelangelo rolled his eyes.

"Think about it, Leo. If I kept it in my bed, I'd never get to sleep. What kind of an idea was that?"

"And how much sleep d'you think I'm going to get, when you kick me out!" Raphael growled, diving for his brother again. Soon the squabble was going full throttle, with Leonardo halfway in and halfway out—and from his place on the couch, Splinter set the towels aside, rubbing a worried hand across his mouth.

There was something he had been meaning to tell his children—his three present children—for a day, but he had been putting it off, because they were not going to like it and there was truly little he could do to soften the blow. And children who did not like something—especially two or three children at once—always came with trouble. But there would only be more trouble if he kept them in the dark until someone forced his hand, and this seemed as good a time as any to interrupt their activities.

They were already fighting, after all. How much worse could things become?

With a sigh for his unfinished laundry and the headache that he knew was just around the corner, Splinter pushed his old bones up from the warmth of the couch, stepping easily around paired socks and latent pillows and Michelangelo's latest homemade costume to reach his bickering sons. Splinter cleared his throat once, and then again. But only Leonardo had stopped arguing to look at him, so he took a more direct approach, conking Raphael and Michelangelo each on the head with his cane—not hard enough to hurt them, but hard enough to sting.

"Ow! Geez, Sensei—what was that for?" Michelangelo asked, looking up at his father through a melodramatic wince.

Splinter's cane resumed its proper position. "For the noise, my son, and for your refusal to listen."

"I would've started listening once you started talking," Michelangelo assured him. "I always do."

Splinter raised an eyebrow at the blatant lie, but chose, in the end, not to call him on it. "I did not want to take that chance. Especially as I have something very important to tell the three of you."

"What is it, Sensei?" Leonardo asked, and even Raphael stopped rubbing his head to wait for his master's answer.

Splinter did not believe in hesitating once a decision had been made—and this decision had been made almost a full day before. All the same he found his mouth quite empty of words, even as it opened in expectation of their dismissal, and Splinter spared himself a moment to rue the innocence of the little faces turned up toward him, and to curse the layout of the lair it was far too late to move out of now. But he spared himself a moment too long, and then he lost the chance to say anything, as Donatello burst into the living room with his tongue already in full gear.

"Sensei! Sensei, can you give me a hand for a sec? I'm trying to set up a strip cable on the wall opposite the electric cable, and I just need somebody to hold the temp circuit box while I hook up the last—"

"Oh, pick me!" Michelangelo volunteered, scurrying around his brothers to throw an arm over Donatello's shoulders. "I wanna help, Donny. I wanna help make my skateboard."

"Skateboard? Mikey, what are you talking about?" Donatello asked. Michelangelo's mouth fell open as far as his jaw allowed.

"My skateboard. My flying skateboard. C'mon, Donny—hyper speed, levitation, fifteen-year fifteen thousand mile warranty… that's what you've been working on the last few days, right?"

"Mikey, I already told you that's impossible," Donatello said, rolling his eyes a little at the other turtle's enthusiasm. "I'm not working on that. I'm just putting the finishing touches on my workshop."

"Oh." Michelangelo's arm dropped like a rock, sliding off of his brother's shoulders as his expression lost its overwhelming excitement. "Well, forget I offered to help, then."

"Michelangelo," Splinter chided.

But his older children—not half as interested in the fate of Michelangelo's skateboard as Michelangelo was—had not missed the latter half of Donatello's explanation, and they pressed forward a few steps to crowd around their youngest brother. "What do you mean, your workshop?" Leonardo asked, nodding his head toward the playroom next door. "Isn't your workshop in there? Those boards that you work on?"

Donatello shook his head, seeming perhaps a little condescending to his master's eye. "That's not really a workshop, Leo. With the kind of projects I'm working on now—"

"Like Mikey's flying skateboard," Michelangelo put in.

Donatello rolled his eyes. "I really need more space than that, and a lot more power. So Sensei said I could modify that storage room at the end of the hall. I mean, since I'm moving in there and all."

And there it was. Three pairs of startled eyes turned to look back at Splinter and Splinter did his best to swallow his wince, wondering internally if there were any less tactless a way that the subject might have been broached.

"What's all that?" Raphael demanded, his voice adopting the rougher tone it often did when he was requesting an explanation he suspected he was not going to like. Donatello blinked.

"You didn't tell them, Sensei?"

Splinter rested a hand against his forehead, greeting the headache that was such a familiar visitor to his tired old temples. "I was about to, Donatello."

"Tell us what?" Michelangelo joined in, hanging off of Raphael's arm either in the fervor of his curiosity or in an unconscious effort to annoy his eldest brother. Splinter sighed but Donatello did not—he was far too happy and too pleased with his news to notice the foreboding shadow that had fallen over his father's face.

"Well, since I'm doing so much tech stuff now, it'll be a lot easier for me to have a workshop of my own—where nobody can get at it," he added, glancing at Michelangelo with a look for the outrageous schemes and general ruckus that seemed to follow in the young turtle's wake. "So I asked Sensei, and he said I can have my own room."

There was a moment of shocked silence following this declaration—the last moment of silence, Splinter suspected, that he would have in a long time. Then the protests began in earnest.

"Huh? No fair! Donny gets his own room but we've all gotta sleep in the living room still?" Raphael demanded, his eyes narrowing with righteous indignation.

"Don't go, Donny," Michelangelo cried, latching onto his brother once again. "If you're not here, who's going to fix the remote late at night, when Raph sits on it in the dark when he's not supposed to be up watching a movie? And who's going to undo the child safety lock on the cabinets so we can get at the snack food we're not supposed to have? And who's—"

"Shut up, Mikey," Raphael snapped, grabbing his brother around the neck and slapping two hands over his mouth. "Do you ever think before you put your foot in your mouth?"

Michelangelo ducked out of his hold and then shrugged, artfully dodging Raphael's renewed attempts to contain him. "What? Leo already told him all those things anyway."

Raphael turned on Leonardo with a snarl—but Leonardo only gave him a shove, still focused, it seemed, on the matter at hand. "Is that true, Sensei? Are we going to have to stay out here, even though Donny has his own room?"

Splinter was still a captive of his sigh. "No, my son. You will not be sleeping in the living room any longer. It has been disruptive to have you sleeping out here in any case." And counterproductive for household discipline, too, from all he had heard of their nighttime antics.

"Then where are we going to sleep?" Leonardo persisted.

"There aren't enough rooms," Raphael cut in, glancing toward the hallway and looking down at his hand as he counted them off. "There's your room, and the bathroom, and the laundry room, and that storeroom—"

"My room," Donatello reminded him.

"The storeroom," Raphael repeated, glaring a little at his youngest brother. "And then that place with all the pipes in it, and that closet, and that one other room. The one with all that junk from the dump in it."

"It's not junk," Donatello said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Those are important parts for my work."

"So they're goin' in your room, then?" Raphael asked, giving Donatello a pointed look. Donatello opened his mouth in some kind of rebuke but Splinter beat him to speech this time, setting a calming hand on Raphael's indignant shoulder.

"Yes. Those will be going in Donatello's room," he said, earning an expression of horror from his youngest that he chose not to justify. Then the old rat sighed, tired of the brewing argument even before it began. "But you are right, Raphael. There are not enough rooms."

"I'll sleep in the bathtub!" Michelangelo volunteered, jumping up and down. "Especially if there's a bath in it."

"Dork. Then what if somebody wants to take a bath?" Raphael pointed out, knuckling his brother in the head.

Michelangelo shrugged. "I'm a good sharer."

"Children," Splinter cut in, preempting whatever response had put that annoyed expression on Raphael's face, "no one will be sleeping in the bathtub."

"Then somebody's sleeping in the closet?" Michelangelo asked, tapping one foot against the other in an eternal fidget. "I mean, that's pretty small, Sensei. Not teeny tiny—like, you could sleep in it, probably. But not so much else."

"No, my sons. No one will be sleeping in the closet, either." Here Splinter held his breath, savoring with the prolonged inhale the last peace he imagined he might ever get—then he closed his eyes, his sigh as telling as the words that followed it. "Two of you will have to share."

This pronouncement was followed by a silence to match the deepest Splinter had ever heard—a silence of war, he realized after a moment, all but blind to the glares passing between his eldest children. But things were never silent for long with Michelangelo around.

"Hey, whaddya know, Raph? You n' Leo can bunk together after all!"

The silence grew, if possible, more stifling, as Raphael and Leonardo continued their contest of stares and Donatello wrung his little hands, Splinter's natural peacemaker looking at Michelangelo with worried eyes.

"Mikey, you know—"

"Just kidding, Donny," Michelangelo interrupted him, an unbothered smile on his—and only his—face as he looked around at his brothers. "So. Who gets the pleasure of rooming with the one and only Michelangelo?"

"Donny," Leonardo and Raphael bit out at the same time, their stiff faces telling Splinter that this momentary agreement was not a ceasefire. Donatello frowned, his expression losing a little of its sympathy.

"I can't share with Mikey. What's the point of having my own workspace if he's in there messing it up all the time?" he asked, looking up at his father for verification. Michelangelo clutched a hand to his chest.

"You wound me, Donny. What've I ever messed up?"

"Leonardo, Raphael," Splinter said, deciding to interfere in their conflict before Donatello answered that question—but in the end he said no more than that, because the battle had already begun, the little turtles firing their first volley.

"I get my own room. I'm the oldest," Raphael said, straightening to his full height. Leonardo did the same.

"Yeah, but I need the space more. I need somewhere quiet to practice."

"You've got the dojo," Raphael countered, crooking a tight thumb back toward the room in question. Leonardo folded his arms.

"That isn't mine. Plus it's loud—it's connected to this room, and you and Mikey are always messing around in here."

"You mean Mikey's always messing around in here," Raphael grunted—but it was an abbreviated reply, because Leonardo had turned to look at his father, and after a moment Raphael did the same, waiting for his absolute judgment with expectant faces. But Splinter knew, as he had known many times before, that the only lasting solution to problems like this would be one his children worked out themselves—and so the old rat only shook his head, watching the apprehension creep back into his children's faces.

"I will not be assigning your rooms, my sons," he said, ignoring the barrage of protests that followed this statement. Splinter reached down and settled a hand onto Donatello's shoulder, turning to leave the room with his youngest in tow. "You may decide things amongst yourselves. I am going to help Donatello with his project. Please do not bother us until you have reached an agreement."

And with that Splinter left the room, not as deaf as he wished to the calls of the indignant children behind him. Whether in deference to those calls or out of a parent's intuition, however, he could not bring himself to close the door all the way, as he followed Donatello into his new room—he left it partway open, just enough to keep an eye on the party of three turtles that had followed them into the hallway before coming to an undecided halt.

After a moment Michelangelo shrugged, turning back to his brothers with a trademark smile. "All right. Let the battle begin. Winner gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance to bunk with Mikey—but let's keep it clean, guys. No biting, okay?"

Splinter winced to think of the response Michelangelo's comment was going to get—but he didn't hear it, because Donatello, who seemed to have forgotten his brothers' trouble as soon as technology was back in his field of vision, chose that moment to begin his explanation.

"Okay. So if you could just come here for a sec, Sensei, and hold this box up—I just don't want the wires to cross when I'm doing this part."

Splinter was reluctant to leave his post by the door, when Heaven only knew what trouble was about to break loose in the hallway. But he was more reluctant to let Donatello handle this operation alone, when his youngest had hinted that electricity might be involved, so he abandoned the strains of squabble leaking in from the hall and moved to Donatello's side, his soft feet moving easily around the nest of wires and cables infesting Donatello's floor.

"Yeah. So just lift that up…"

Splinter did as he was asked, holding the gray, metallic box up to his chest, and Donatello ducked down under his desk—well, what served as his desk, a pair of boards nailed together and set into a natural dip in the concrete wall. It was the best they could do sometimes, when the caverns of this construction oddity they had taken for their home lacked the space to accommodate real furniture. The lair had not been intended as a house, after all—most of the rooms were only offshoots of a service tunnel that had been out of use for many long years, and the family had fixed them up as needed. More often than not, getting the space to serve their needs was a battle not easily won; and Splinter was not thrilled to think of the two rooms down the hall that would shortly need renovation. Very shortly, he hoped, if his sons could come to some kind of an agreement.

"Darn. A little more to the right…"

Splinter glanced down to check whether this mumble was meant for him—but as Donatello's head did not reappear, he assumed the comment was self-directed and settled back into holding the box, waiting with half an ear for any instructions that might come his way. Things became tremendously quiet for a moment as Donatello fought with whatever piece of electrical work had given him trouble—quiet enough that Splinter could hear the argument progressing down the hall, carried to him on voices that had only continued to rise behind the partially closed door.

"You're off your head, Leo. There's no way I'm sharing a room with Mikey while you get one all to yourself. I'm bigger than you—I need more space."

"No, you don't," Leonardo returned, and if Splinter craned his neck he could just see the young turtle's hands falling onto his hips through the crack in the door. "You're always watching TV or messing around out of the lair, anyway."

"Same to you," Raphael shot back. "All you ever do is practice your stupid katas and hang around Sensei—what do you need it for, huh?"

"I need the quiet," Leonardo repeated. "You and Mikey are so loud—I can't think straight when you're stomping around out here. The dojo's right through that door, you know."

"Even Raph's not stupid enough to forget where the dojo is," Michelangelo piped up, appearing briefly in the view through the door before an impatient hand jutted out from where Raphael was hidden by the door frame and pushed him back out of sight.

"Would you shut it?" Raphael growled. Leonardo took advantage of his distraction to get the next argument in as well.

"Why do you care about rooming with Mikey, anyway, Raph? You play with him all the time."

"You mean he always hangs around getting on my nerves," Raphael said, his voice bordering on a shout. "He drives me crazy!"

From his place down the hall, Splinter shifted in his stance, wishing that he was not so stationary at the moment and could move to diffuse the thread of his sons' rising argument before it got worse. Raphael and Leonardo were so quick to lose their heads when they disagreed, which was a good half of the time these days, and their master knew that the hurtful dismissals hurtling in Michelangelo's direction had far more to do with their frustration with the room situation than with Michelangelo—but Michelangelo couldn't know that, and his not knowing would lead to trouble faster than Splinter wanted to get there.

Perhaps it would be better to clear out that last closet, after all.

"You're not the only one he drives crazy, Raph."

"Well I definitely get it the worst!"

"That's only because you lose your temper so fast."

"Hey, I'm not the one shouting, Leo."

"Yes, you are!"

With a growing sense of foreboding, Splinter cleared his throat. "Donatello…"

"Just a minute, Sensei. I'm having trouble fusing these wires. I really need to concentrate for a sec."

Splinter swallowed his sigh, twisting his neck to keep an eye on the debate taking place in his hallway. Michelangelo was back in the frame, looking a little less pleased than he had before—but still his brothers paid him no attention, wrapped up in the conflict that had, Splinter knew, a lot more to do with control than either of them realized.

"This is stupid, Raph," Leonardo was saying, his posture stiffer with each rising word. "Everybody knows you and Mikey are best friends. Why can't you share with him?"

"Who's best friends?" Raphael demanded, and Splinter winced at the sight of Michelangelo's widening eyes. "Mikey's just annoying. Why should I have to have him in my room?"

"Well, why should I?" Leonardo returned. "At least you guys play together."

"Donatello," Splinter repeated, taking as much of a step toward the door as the cords allowed. "Perhaps we should take a short break."

"Huh?" Donatello poked his head out from under the desk, blinking in surprise. "But I'm right in the middle of this, Sensei."

"Playing? Who's playing? When he's around he just bothers me!" Raphael yelled.

Splinter set the box down carefully and turned for the door. "There is something more pressing that must be dealt with now, my son."

"Well, I don't like spending time with him," Leonardo was yelling back as Splinter, with Donatello on his heels, rushed out of his youngest's new bedroom and into the hallway, all of his ninja insight and parent's instinct sending out a warning at the quarrel's progression. But for the knot in his stomach and all the haste in his old bones, Splinter did not make it in time, and he was still two doors away from the eye of the storm when Raphael got the last word in.

"Well I don't like Mikey either!" he shouted, his scowling face inches from his brother's. Then the hallway moved from escalating chaos to total mayhem, as Michelangelo—who had been observing his brothers' argument with a slowly darkening expression—threw back his head and began to wail as only he knew how, the full brunt of his displeasure at this blatant rejection resounding throughout the lair.

All motion in the hallway, excepting the fierce tears rushing down Michelangelo's face, came to a sudden and sickening halt. Splinter drew up short of his older children and Donatello's hands twitched at his side, as though longing to leap up and cover his ears, and Leonardo and Raphael turned to stare at Michelangelo with faces that seemed to be hearing, for the first time, their own angry words.

Leonardo's jaw fell open but no sound came out; Raphael did better but not much, one hand lifting to land light as a fly on Michelangelo's shoulder as the eldest turtle struggled to find his tongue.

"Aw, Mikey…"

Michelangelo did not acknowledge the hand on his shoulder or the faltering voice that came with it. Nor did he acknowledge the soft, warm hand Splinter dropped onto his shell a moment later or the arms Donatello threw around his favorite playmate, staring at his older brothers with eyes that were almost as shocked as they were accusing.

"Why did you say that, Raph? Both of you! Why would you say things like that?" Donatello demanded, giving Michelangelo a tighter hug as his brothers confronted him with nothing more than silence, on Leonardo's part, and a stuttered explanation from Raphael. "Oh, Mikey, they didn't meant it," he assured Michelangelo—but the little turtle neither seemed to hear him nor seemed to care, interested in nothing but his ongoing howl.

Splinter shook his head a little, pressing Michelangelo against his robe. Michelangelo was not one to cry very often—but of all his children, it was Michelangelo's tears Splinter dreaded most of all, because unlike Donatello, who could usually be calmed with nothing more than a moment in his father's arms, and unlike Raphael and Leonardo, who cried for the reasons that all children cried but usually made an effort to do so alone, Michelangelo, once the tears started, could not be comforted and did not remove himself from his family. When Michelangelo cried, he seemed to want to do nothing but wail—and wail he did, with lungs long developed by his unending loquacity.

"My son," Splinter said after a moment, attempting to catch the eyes that Michelangelo had squeezed closed, "your brothers did not mean anything by their words. They were angry, and spoke as we often do in anger, with our heartbeat rather than our heart. I know that they will tell you the same."

"Yeah, absolutely, Mikey," Raphael added before Splinter could even give him a significant look. "You know how me n' Leo get. We didn't mean anything we said. Come on—you know that, right?"

But if Michelangelo did know, he was not sharing—he was only crying, as loudly as ever, and with as little indication of having heard his brother as if Raphael had not spoken at all.

Leonardo seemed to have finally worked out what he wanted to say, and he moved forward as though he might have liked to give Michelangelo a hug—but there was no space, between the other members of his family, so Leonardo just settled both hands onto Michelangelo's upper arms, trying, like his father, to catch that distracted gaze.

"Mikey, me and Raph are really sorry. We didn't mean it at all. We shouldn't have been fighting. We really don't mind sharing a room with you."

Splinter raised an eyebrow at that, wondering if a statement like that could hold any weight compared to the fifteen minutes that had come before it. Raphael seemed to think so, in any case—he jumped in to second Leonardo's assertion at once, tightening his hold on Michelangelo's shoulder.

"Yeah, Mikey. We don't mind at all. You're awesome to have around. I mean it."

"That's not what you said!" Michelangelo cried, the first words out of his mouth since his tears had begun and delivered in the same piercing tone. "You said you don't like me!"

"But that's not true, Mikey," Raphael told him, his voice growing more desperate along with his expression. "C'mon, you know it's not. Who would I play Power Rangers with without you, huh? Boring Leo and baby Donny?"

Splinter reflected to himself that it might be worth the effort to talk to Raphael about his unintentional insults, which tended to come to the fore particularly when he was trying to comfort Michelangelo—but Leonardo did not comment, ignoring his brother's words and Donatello's widened eyes as he moved to bolster the claim.

"Me, too, Mikey. It's a lot of fun playing clothespin-people with you. Really," he repeated, reaching perhaps the glass ceiling of his capacity for apology creation. Michelangelo was still wailing, though, so Leonardo pressed on. "I'm really sorry, Mikey. Share a room with me, okay? We can build a huge clothespin fort in the corner."

Michelangelo opened his eyes at that, though his tears did not cease—but no one got to hear what he thought of the offer, because Raphael stepped forward and pulled Michelangelo into a hug, dislodging three other sets of hands in the process.

"No way. Mikey's bunking with me, and I'm not bunking without him."

Michelangelo blinked back a few tears, watching, with Splinter and Donatello, the reversal of the long argument as Leonardo shook his head again. "No, Raph. You were right—you should have your own room. You're the oldest. I was just being selfish." The young turtle spit out the last word like a curse, his face tight with self-admonishment—but still Raphael did not release his brother, holding onto Michelangelo as though Leonardo might try to take him by force.

"Oldest nothin'. I don't want my own room. You were the one that was right, Leo—Mikey's my best friend in the whole world, and he's rooming with me."

Michelangelo sniffed a little, turning around to face his oldest brother with large, watery eyes. "You mean that, Raph?"

Raphael found a smile somewhere. "Totally, Mikey. You're the best—all the way. There's nobody I'd rather spend a day with."

Michelangelo wiped a hand across his eyes. "Not Han Solo?"

Raphael scoffed. "No way. That lame guy? He's not half as fun as you."

Michelangelo straightened a little more. "Not the X-Men?"

Raphael frowned. "That bunch of freaks? Come on, Mikey—you're the coolest mutant of all."

Michelangelo tipped his head to one side, reaching for his trump card. "Not even the Red Ranger?"

It seemed to Splinter that Raphael's eyes hesitated—but his tongue did not, and in the end neither did he, giving Michelangelo a gentle punch to the arm. "Mikey, if the Red Ranger bounced right outta the TV and asked me to join the Power Rangers, I wouldn't do it if it meant no more playin' with you."

And as it was that declaration that finally dried the rest of Michelangelo's tears, Leonardo had little choice but to concede the argument, and the rooms were divided that way, with Raphael and Michelangelo winning the larger of the two for their own. Raphael, conscious perhaps of the tear tracks still visible on Michelangelo's face, had nothing but friendly words for Michelangelo for the rest of the day—not when Michelangelo stepped on his foot during the moving stage, not when it was discovered that the ceiling was too low for a bunk bed and one lone bed was moved into their room, not when Michelangelo recovered his mouth and joked to no end about everything from Raphael's hygiene to his less than overwhelming brain capacity.

Raphael did not even have any complaints to make later that night, when all of the children were tucked into their newly separated beds and Splinter was making his rounds, and Michelangelo drooled and kicked his feet and talked in his sleep from one side of their shared bed. It was breakfast before Raphael said anything at all—and when he did, Splinter still would not have called it a complaint, only a cautious request.

"Hey, Sensei. I was thinkin'…" Raphael paused to chase his cereal around his bowl, and Michelangelo jumped on the opportunity, grinning for the opening as much as for the last blueberry muffin Leonardo had slipped onto his plate.

"Gee, Raph—I hope you didn't hurt yourself. Do you need first aid? Should we call the paramedics?" Michelangelo asked, so loud and overbearing in his teasing that it was hard to believe, for a moment, that this was the same young turtle who had been so torn up over his brothers' rejection the day before.

Raphael swatted at him but missed on purpose. "Yeah, anyway. You know, I've always thought it'd be really cool to sleep in a hammock, and now that I've got a room, I was wondering if I could get one. Nothing fancy or whatever… just, you know…"

Splinter thought again of Raphael, crunched into one sliver of the bed by the brother he could not even try to rebuke as Michelangelo's feet struck out at the empty air, and smiled as he nodded. Michelangelo smiled, too, though his smile was not as kind.

"That's a great idea, Raph. I wasn't going to say anything, 'cause it's rude and all, but you're a real blanket hog. And your feet smell."

Raphael opened his mouth to answer, no doubt prepared to undo, in his temper, all the good that his former restraint had done. But he didn't get to say a word before Donatello and Leonardo, wary of his ready tongue, jumped to Michelangelo's defense: Donatello pushed the rest of his corn muffin into Raphael's mouth and Leonardo elbowed him hard in the side, and as these actions occurred simultaneously there was not a little commotion at the table as Raphael choked on more than his words. And as the fighting began anew, with three turtles in the middle and one rolling with laughter from his spot in the peanut gallery, Splinter wondered once more whether it might not be wisest to fix up that last closet as a bedroom. The less time his children had to pursue entertainment of this variety, the more peaceful his household would undoubtedly be.

_End Chapter 17_


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Second to last chapter; everything except the epilogue. This ended up being a longer chapter, but I wanted to get this whole string of stories in together, since that's how they were meant to be read. I'll have a longer note on the next chapter, but I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's been reading this story. I hope it's given you a laugh, at least.

Special note: As becomes obvious pretty quickly in this story, **I've put the turtles in a different order age-wise** than what I see all over this site. I don't know that there's an official order; either way, I've chosen a different one. For this story, **Raphael is the eldest turtle, Leonardo is second, Michelangelo is third and Donatello is fourth**_**.**_ There are explanations for this in the text; and no, I won't change it on request. Sorry.

Warnings: None. It's a fluffy family story, all the way through.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Raphael opened his mouth to answer, no doubt prepared to undo, in his temper, all the good that his former restraint had done. But he didn't get to say a word before Donatello and Leonardo, wary of his ready tongue, jumped to Michelangelo's defense: Donatello pushed the rest of his corn muffin into Raphael's mouth and Leonardo elbowed him hard in the side, and as these actions occurred simultaneously there was not a little commotion at the table as Raphael choked on more than his words. And as the fighting began anew, with three turtles in the middle and one rolling with laughter from his spot in the peanut gallery, Splinter wondered once more whether it might not be wisest to fix up that last closet as a bedroom. The less time his children had to pursue entertainment of this variety, the more peaceful his household would undoubtedly be._

.x.

In the silence of a perfect memory, Splinter found himself laughing, straightening the stack of pictures in his arms and brushing their soft edges down against one another—together, the way they were meant to be. It hadn't taken him more than a few weeks to empty the storage closet and make a place for Michelangelo to have his own room, small though it was, but Raphael had retained the hammock all the same—perhaps he liked the liberty that came with sleeping in something other than a typical bed.

Here in the haven of memory, Splinter splayed the pictures out in his hands, as far apart as he could, as far as his fingers allowed, and his eyes passed in arc across them all, taking in all the pieces of their young artist at the same time. Michelangelo. A clown with better natural skills than any of his brothers, and grand champion of Splinter's obstacle courses for as long as they'd been competing. The master of willpower so strong he truly could do whatever he put his mind to. The child who had given Splinter the most trouble of all, for his great potential as a martial artist as much as for the insistence on enjoying life that had made him so incorrigible.

But Splinter knew, as the pictures knew—as they all remembered—that there was more to Michelangelo than this. A mind of infinite imagination. A jokester and friend who had helped his brothers make light of life, even at their own expense. And a loving, laughing creature with a refusal to give up as strong as his spirit, with an ability to connect to others that often, it seemed to Splinter, simply knew no bounds.

And, perhaps, a streak of undeniable selfishness as well.

"Don't look now, Mikey, but I'm afraid your skateboard might have taken its last flight."

Splinter cocked one ear in the direction of Leonardo's voice, listening to the echo of that halting statement and the telltale squawk of Michelangelo's disbelief.

"No! Not my flying skateboard!" Michelangelo's generally good-natured voice was filled with renewed anger, the same anger that had always followed the announcement that he'd lost a favorite toy. "How could they?" Michelangelo moaned, no doubt dropping to his knees beside the ruined craft. "I'll never forgive the Foot for this!"

"You were going to forgive them before?" Raphael asked, his voice all Splinter needed to imagine the incredulity that would be curdling his brow.

"Well, not to brag or anything, but it was one of a kind," Donatello cut in, the short clang that followed his words speaking to the youngest turtle's continued activity. "Too bad they tore it to shreds, huh, Mikey?"

Michelangelo groaned. "You can fix it, right, Donny? You've gotta fix it. Without a super-high-speed flying skateboard, my life will never be complete again."

Splinter shook his head in the peace of his broken sanctuary, and in the main room Donatello gave a hum of consideration, the same half-distracted sound that technical repairs usually brought to his conversation.

"I don't know, really… I mean, I can try, but we were lucky to find a lot of these parts the first time around. There's no guarantee I could get replacements—or that they'd even work, if I did."

"No way, Donny! Say it isn't so! You can fix it—I know you can. You're the smartest ninja turtle that ever lived."

"What kind of a compliment is that?" Donatello asked, followed by a growl that was probably Raphael's.

"Rub it in, braniac," the eldest turtle said, without enough force to mean it.

"Come on, Donny," Michelangelo was cheering, the edge of flattery that had taken over his voice curbing its volume. "You can do it. You're the techno-master. All you gotta do is believe, and put that brain to good use making me a new board. Say it with me—I believe in Donny, I believe in Donny, I believe…"

"All right, Mikey," Donatello relented with a laugh. "I'll give it a shot when we get home, okay? No promises, though. Got it?"

"Abs-itively pos-olutely," Michelangelo agreed.

Donatello's sigh was thick with the hint of swallowed pride. "Well, I guess that's that, then. Leo, can you move the pieces of Mikey's board over with the rest of our stuff? I want to see what I can salvage."

"That's going to take another trip all on its own," Leonardo grumbled, but Splinter could hear the grating sound of metal being lifted from the floor, proof enough that his second son was doing as he'd been asked.

The old rat smiled down at his colorful keepsakes. That was just like Michelangelo, after all: to focus on the loss of the little things, his comic books or his latest plaything, when so much more had been lost. It was very selfish, in a way; Michelangelo tended to be blind to all but his own concerns. Still, there was a positive side to his attitude, as well—it took the rest of their minds off of the greater things they'd lost.

For Donatello, particularly, it did even more. Splinter was not blind to the struggles his youngest had sometimes endured in attempts to prove himself the equal of his brothers. Donatello had never been the strongest fighter, and if none of his brothers but Raphael had ever been inclined to announce that, Leonardo's constant words of caution to Michelangelo and Raphael concerning Donatello's delicacy couldn't have helped the youngest turtle's ego either. Only Michelangelo had exhibited a unique ability to inspire Donatello—and all of his brothers, truly—in ways that they could not inspire each other, or even inspire themselves. And it all stemmed from that same selfishness.

.x.

"Raphael. How long have you been watching television?"

"A while," the little turtle grunted, glancing sideways at the TV instead of meeting his father's eyes.

Splinter crossed his arms over his chest. "A while. I seem to remember you watching television when I started the laundry, and that was over an hour ago. Am I mistaken?"

"Maybe," said Raphael, who had never been particularly good at verbal sparring.

Splinter sighed. "Too much television is not good for you, my son. Turn that off for now and find something else to play with."

"But Power Rangers is on!" Raphael protested, pointing one avid finger toward the screen alive with colorful warriors.

"It is still on?" Splinter asked.

Raphael's face lit up. "Yeah! All day. It's a Power Rangers marathon. I'm gonna watch it from now 'till bedtime."

"No, you are not," Splinter replied, fishing the remote out of the carnage of chip wrappers and candy packages that covered his coffee table. "You have watched enough television for one morning. Your brothers are playing in the next room. Go play with them for a while."

"But the Power Rangers—"

"Are finished for now," Splinter concluded for him, flicking the power button on the remote. "Perhaps you may watch more this afternoon, if there is nothing else for us to do."

Raphael's face crunched up around his narrowed eyes, a look that Splinter recognized as his eldest's first real glare—but Raphael had been glaring at his father far too long for that to be effective, and he only pointed toward the next room, immune to the surly grumble that trailed his eldest's departing footsteps. Then he tucked the remote into its hiding place along the top of his bookcase and followed Raphael, steeling himself to take stock of the children who never stayed out of trouble for long.

For once, they seemed to be behaving themselves. Donatello was occupied on one side of the room by the tools and plywood plank that currently served as his workshop, dissecting a video camera and a spare toaster—but he had been doing that when Splinter last checked in, and as all of his parts were recent acquisitions from the junkyard there was nothing to be concerned about in that corner. Michelangelo and Leonardo, relegated to the opposite wall, were playing a lively game of clothespin-people—or at least, Michelangelo was playing and Leonardo was watching, which was essentially the same way they always played.

Raphael was standing with crossed arms a little to one side of his brothers and watching the game with unimpressed countenance, and Splinter moved to stand with him, listening to Michelangelo's usual cheerful chatter.

"So that's when superhero clothespin guy zooms in and knocks super-villain guy screaming to his doom!" Michelangelo explained, flying one clothespin with a smile and a scrapped cape above their haphazard block fortress. With this weapon in hand he knocked another clothespin, this one sporting a severe frown, back to the floor, laughing as he waved his victorious superhero through the air. "Ha ha! Take that, you evil fiend!"

"But can't the super-villain fly?" Leonardo asked, picking up the vanquished clothespin in one baffled hand as Michelangelo's hero landed victoriously at the top of the castle. "He could fly yesterday."

"Well, sure—yesterday," Michelangelo said. "But that was before he accidentally got zapped by that toaster of Donny's and lost all his superpowers. He's toast today."

"Oh…" Leonardo lowered the clothespin back to the floor and then hesitated, the villainous clothespin lingering in his uncertain hand. "But wasn't he flying just a minute ago? In the big battle with the masked avenger?"

"That was just 'cause he stole robotman's rocket pack," Michelangelo replied, seemingly at peace with the report even as he reached over to take the clothespin villain from Leonardo and set it back at the base of their tower. "But superhero guy got that with his laser beam, remember? Geez, Leo. Keep up with the game, huh?"

"Okay," Leonardo said, but his voice remained as uncertain as his expression, stuck halfway between confusion and a sliver of anxiety.

Splinter shook his head. It would not be unfair to say that Leonardo never seemed to understand his next youngest brother's games, but neither he nor Michelangelo seemed to mind this storytelling manner of play, so Splinter settled for turning the matter over once in his mind before he looked back to Raphael, as surly as ever.

"Would you like to join the game, Raphael?"

"No," Raphael stormed, glaring at his brothers. Leonardo glanced up at them both with a slightly wary frown, but Michelangelo was all smiles, waving the cast of clothespins who were not currently participating in the game in one energetic fist.

"Come on, Raphi! You can be the army guys. They were just about to storm the castle gates, fight the guards, and rescue the sidekick who dressed up like the princess so she could escape with the musicians."

This long explanation only made Raphael growl, and the little turtle stalked toward his brothers with his shoulders bunched up, his scowl growing fiercer with every step. "I hate clothespins!" he shouted as he reached Michelangelo, stomping right through the middle of the fortress. Blocks and clothespin people flew in all directions. Michelangelo gave a half-scream, Splinter gasped and Leonardo jumped to his feet, his hands already clenched in self-righteous fists.

"Hey! What are you doing, Raph? We were playing with that!"

Splinter had a feeling he should be getting into the middle of this—sweeping in to punish Raphael, as Leonardo's sideways glance clearly expected him to. But for the sake of a future where they policed themselves, he held himself back, even as Raphael stepped forward and kicked a block across the room in Donatello's direction.

"Yeah? What're you gonna do about it?" Raphael taunted, staring down at Leonardo from the few inches age and greater strength had given him.

Leonardo stood his ground, clenching his jaw against the question. "You can't do that," he said, looking over at Splinter in search of the support that had usually come by now. "We were playing, and it's not okay to break our game. Right, Mikey?"

But Michelangelo, for his part, had gone right back to playing, flopped out on his stomach amid the block and clothespin catastrophe and talking merrily to himself. "Oh, no—superhero guy's been crushed by the falling blocks. It's up to his fake princess sidekick to save the day…"

"Mikey!" Leonardo said again. Michelangelo looked up.

"What?"

"Raph broke the castle. Aren't you mad?"

"Oh, that." Michelangelo shrugged. "Nah. That just happens sometimes. You gotta be ready for Hurricane Raphi, Leo. He's a natural disaster."

"I'm a what now?" Raphael wanted to know, taking a step toward his younger brothers.

"But it's not right!" Leonardo protested, stomping one foot and accidentally crushing a clothespin in the process.

"Oh, no!" Michelangelo cried, his voice filled with false horror. "The princess sidekick got it, too. Well, that just leaves the real princess. Good thing she got out b'fore the castle came down, huh?"

Leonardo pulled his foot back hard, obviously mortified, and Raphael's gaze shot across the floor, clearly searching for the princess in question to do away with the last clothespin character. Splinter thought it might be wise to intervene before that happened. But he didn't get the chance, and neither did Raphael, because at that moment a frustrated scream went up from the other side of the room, drawing all eyes in that direction.

"I can't do this!" Donatello shouted, throwing a screwdriver across the room. It bounced into the disaster area of Michelangelo's toys, crushing a clothespin bystander in its last roll.

Splinter and his children turned to look toward Donatello, and it didn't take Splinter a second to recognize the frustrated tears forming at the corners of Donatello's eyes, a wave of disappointment suffusing his youngest's face. "Is something the matter, my son?" he asked, keeping his tone gentle although he knew that, had it been another child, there might have been a lecture about throwing dangerous things in Donatello's future.

Michelangelo joined in, enthusiastic as usual. "Yeah, Donny. You never throw your tools. You're always saying how they're not toys."

"Well, they're not," Donatello returned, miffed in spite of his answer. "They're very important tools. They're just not—not working!"

This last was accompanied by a bout of tears, which Donatello confronted in his usual way by running forward and pressing his face into his father's warm stomach. Splinter soothed a hand against his head, trusting his robe to catch the tears he couldn't.

"What is not working, Donatello?" he asked, all the other turtles gathering around him in a semi-circle to inspect their crying brother. Donatello gave a great sniffle, tossing one accusing hand back toward his abandoned workbench.

"Everything. Everything's not working. I can't get the motor out of the camera, and I can't get the springs out of the toaster, and if I don't have the motor and the springs then I can't make a car out of the toaster!"

Splinter frowned a little to himself, surprised as usual by Donatello's choice of projects. "Why do you want to make a car out of the toaster, my son?"

Donatello did not answer, but Michelangelo did, waving his excited hands toward the fallen pile of clothespins. "It's for superhero guy, Sensei," the little turtle said, swooping down to scoop the fallen hero into his hands. "Every superhero's gotta have a cool car. Nobody'll mess with superhero guy when he's riding around in a toaster car with awesome catapult action."

So that was it. Splinter gave Michelangelo a considering look, and then he turned back to Donatello, patting his youngest's quaking back. "Do you want to make a car for your brother, Donatello?"

"Yes," Donatello answered immediately, looking up at his father with heartfelt sorrow. "I want to make Mikey's car more than anything. But it's just too hard. I can't do it!" Donatello finished his explanation with a fresh flurry of tears, his face sagging into Splinter's robe, and Splinter let him cry, soothing his disappointed child with time's mellow, gentle hand.

Leonardo and Raphael shared a look—the same look of uncertain determination that usually passed between them when Donatello had stopped whining and settled for crying. Then Raphael cleared his young throat, putting a brave hand on Donatello's shoulder as he made the first attempt at consoling.

"It can't be that bad, Don," Raphael started, shrugging one shoulder in the direction of the abandoned project. "I can get those springs out for ya, easy."

"No way," Donatello cried, lifting his head from Splinter's stomach long enough to glare at his eldest brother. "You'll break them. Just like you break everything."

For once Raphael did not rise to the insult, watching his temper for Donatello's sake. "I'll be careful," he tried, but Donatello was having none of it, pulling his shoulder out of the reach of Raphael's hopeful hand.

"You don't know how to be careful," the youngest turtle snipped. And that was the end of that.

Raphael stepped backward, defeated, and Leonardo moved forward to take his turn, playing as usual a hand as different from Raphael's as could possibly be played. "Donny, you don't have to make a toaster car. If it's too hard, don't worry about it. Mikey'll understand. Right, Mikey?"

Donatello looked over at Michelangelo, his expression torn between indignation at the suggestion that there was something he couldn't do and hope that Michelangelo would allow him to give up the project. But Michelangelo, as usual, did not follow his brother's lead—the little turtle's jaw dropped, and he stared at Donatello with great wide eyes, shock at Leonardo's question written all over his face.

"What? No way, Donny—don't give up on my car!"

Donatello's eyes scrunched up yet farther at this protest, flickering with unshed tears. "But I can't do it, Mikey. I can't. I just can't!" With every 'can't' the little turtle's voice reached a new height of register, and Splinter knew he was not the only one suppressing a wince, more familiar than he would have liked with the course of Donatello's progressing tantrums.

Only Michelangelo remained unfazed, as he so often did. He did not draw back from Donatello's looming tears—instead he skidded forward, grabbing his younger brother's hands and tugging him hopefully toward his workstation.

"Sure you can. Come on, Donny—you're the smartest turtle by a mile. By a hundred miles! There's nothing you can't do. Last time the TV broke, who fixed it in time for me to watch cartoons before practice?"

"I did," Donatello said, though his feet were reluctant to leave Splinter's side.

"Absolutely," Michelangelo confirmed, squeezing his brother's hands. "And what about the time I flew my model plane down that tunnel we're not allowed to go into and totally smashed it? Who put it back together after the head-on collision with the pole that almost got Raph and his skateboard, too?"

"Me," Donatello said.

"Shut up, you dork," Raphael hissed, dodging to Michelangelo's side so he could imprint his elbow in the talkative little turtle's ribs. Splinter crossed his arms, and Leonardo did the same, mimicking his father's posture as Michelangelo gasped in realization.

"Oh, right," he amended, rubbing his ribs and squinting up at his master. "I forgot. We didn't break that in the off-limits tunnel. We broke it in that other tunnel. The one that's a-okay to go down."

"I am sure," Splinter said, leaning back on his heels. But he said no more than that, at the moment, because Donatello was wavering and Michelangelo had noticed, leaping back into his regimen of encouragement before the chance slipped away.

"And 'member, Donny, when the power went out that time 'cause somebody popped something up by the street?"

"The construction company nicked the power line," Donatello filled in, trying not to look as pleased as he was. Michelangelo nodded heartily and threw an arm over his shoulder.

"Yeah. And Sensei couldn't find the flashlights, 'cause I was using them for the legs of super-villain's huge pillow robot, so you made new ones out of the lights from the oven 'n the fridge. Remember?"

"Well, yeah," Donatello admitted slowly, the pride of praise and the story of his accomplishments cleansing his expression. "But those things were different, Mikey…"

"Different, yeah. Way harder—they had'ta be." Michelangelo laid both hands on his brother's shoulders now, face to face with his hesitating frown. "You could do those things piece of cake, Donny. A toaster car's gotta be even easier. Don't give up on my car, bro—it's gonna be so awesome when you're done. It's gonna be the best ever. The best car any superhero guy's ever had!"

"Well, I mean… I guess I could try again," Donatello relented, glowing in spite of himself from all the lavish praise. Michelangelo cheered.

"Yahoo! Donny's car's gonna to be the best, and Donny's the best, too. Come on, Donny—I'll help."

"Me too," Raphael struck in, following his brothers toward the workspace. "I'll get those springs out."

"You won't," Donatello told him, a new level of confidence filling his voice. "You'll just break it, if you do things your way. I'll tell you what to do, okay? Don't touch anything else."

"Picky brat," Raphael grumbled—but that was all he grumbled, and he kept it to himself, following Michelangelo and Donatello toward the plywood bench.

Splinter watched them all for a moment and marveled at the confidence Michelangelo had given his brother, helping Donatello find his feet in the arena in which his mind had destined him to shine. And marveling, too, that it all stemmed from his next to youngest's selfish wish for a toaster car. But he thought no more of it than that, because a little hand reached up to find his and pulled him after the first three sets of footsteps, leading the last two members of their family toward the workbench as well.

"Come on, Sensei. Let's help," Leonardo said, drawing them together again. Splinter smiled to himself and nodded to his son, and then to all of them, poised with picks and screwdrivers above the helpless appliances.

And so they helped Donatello with his toaster car until lunchtime, and Raphael did not complain even once about missing the Power Rangers marathon. Nor did he or Leonardo try to take control of the disassembly and reassembly process, content to follow Donatello's directions, and Splinter was almost as proud of that as Donatello was overjoyed.

And Michelangelo, who proved to be the least helpful of all and was sent away to play with his toys long before the process was completed, had his toaster car not long after lunch—and between him and the clothespin people launched from the toaster as fast as he could reload it, the lair was not a peaceful one that evening. Still, in the end, Splinter knew Donatello's smile was worth all the trouble.

.x.

"We will do straight punches, chest level. Focus on the accuracy of your strike, not on strength or speed. Do you understand?"

Leonardo nodded, but Raphael looked up at his father with a sharpening scowl, kicking one impatient foot at the cloth dummy that bobbed on its string across from him. "We always do accuracy. What good's hitting some guy if it's got no power?"

"At least a little more good, Raphael," Splinter said, correcting Leonardo's stance with absent hands, "than is a strong punch that cannot hit its target. Accuracy is more important than strength—and as I have told you before, strength will come with time. Aim we must secure now." The old rat turned back to his oldest with patient eyes, meeting that frustrated gaze with the same calm he had learned to always bring against Raphael's storm. "Any further questions?"

"I hate this crap," Raphael muttered, and Leonardo shoved him for his language, which almost turned into a war as Raphael made to practice his straight punches on his brother instead of the dummy. Splinter got in between them and got them back to their dummys with a minimum of snapping, though by the end all three of them were more irritated than they had already been.

"Back off, Raph."

"This is my dummy, shell for brains. Where d'ya want me to stand, huh?"

"Farther away," Leonardo said, sinking back into ready position.

Raphael growled. "Yeah? Well, who _pushed_ me in the first place, huh?" he demanded, returning the favor.

Splinter put a hand to his head and wondered again why Leonardo and Raphael were training together today.

"Incoming! It's superhero guy to the rescue!"

Ah, yes. Because only two dummys were not broken at the moment, and Michelangelo and Donatello weren't finished playing. And the suggestion that they stop playing earlier and come join the others in the dojo had almost sent Donatello into conniptions.

A clothespin in a bright paper cape skittered into the dojo and slid to a stop at Splinter's feet, and he reached a tired hand down to pick it up, directing eyes that were not a little weary of flying clothespins toward the door to the living room. Two little turtles blinked back at him, Donatello clinging to the doorframe as Michelangelo lay on the floor with the toaster car in his hands. Splinter crossed his arms over his chest.

"Children. Your brothers are trying to train. Please take your toys elsewhere so you do not distract them."

Donatello looked suitably chastised, shrinking back into the living room until only his eyes were showing, but Michelangelo just propped his chin up on his hands, kicking his feet back and forth in the doorway. "Really? Sounded like they were trying to have a fight. Superhero guy came to see what evil was afoot."

Splinter glanced down at the clothespin in his hand and then back at his eldest sons, silently asking them how involved they wanted their younger brothers to be in their spat. Raphael and Leonardo exchanged glances, and then Raphael backed up until he was level with his own dummy, shaking the irritation from his arms as best he could.

"Let's just get on with this."

Leonardo shook his head but didn't disagree, and Splinter turned back to his younger children, tossing the heroic clothespin into Michelangelo's waiting hands. "It seems there is no evil afoot in here," he said, cocking his head toward the living room at their backs. "Perhaps your services are better needed in the living room."

"Okay—let's go check, Donny," Michelangelo said, scooting backwards out of the room on his stomach. "Don't worry, Sensei! Superhero guy and the coolest superhero car ever built'll vanquish all the evil the living room's up to."

"I'm sure they will," Splinter murmured, more to himself than to the children who were departing without a backward glance.

It was good, in the long run, that Michelangelo still fancied the car Donatello had worked so hard to make him after three days had passed—the only downside, as Splinter saw it, was that making Michelangelo or Donatello do anything these days was almost impossible. Michelangelo had no interest in anything besides his clothespins, and Donatello refused to leave his brother's side when he was playing with the car—out of fear, Splinter had finally realized, that Michelangelo might compliment the car or its maker while his younger brother wasn't around to hear it. Donatello, it seemed, was not willing to miss a single stroke of praise.

Which left Splinter in the dojo with two unbroken dummys and two surly children who weren't glaring at each other only because they had refocused their glares on the targets. Splinter rubbed his forehead once more and then waved a hand, catching his remaining sons' attention with that little movement.

"Well, begin."

Splinter stood back to watch his sons, who hit one after another more by habit than intention, trading strikes as they had learned so that their father could watch both—or all four of them, on other days—at the same time. Still they had not hit more than twice each before Splinter stopped them, resting a steadying hand on Leonardo's dummy to stop its lopsided sway.

"Accuracy, my sons. Focus on hitting the same place each time. Feel the way your body moves each time it hits that place. There is too much anger in both of you."

For a few punches, the admonition only seemed to make them angrier—but then Leonardo began to settle down, as Splinter had known he would, directing all of his attention at the dummy and the challenge that was a struggle with only himself. Slowly his second son's strikes began to focus in on a single point on the dummy's stuffed chest, a sharpening of focus Splinter could see as much in the movement of the beaten dummy as in the aspect of Leonardo's face.

Raphael should have been calming, too. Usually exercises like this one pulled Raphael's frustration away from his brothers, his father or himself, because they allowed him such a physical release of the tension that ran in current at all times through his intemperate soul. Today, it didn't seem to be working. With every swing, Raphael's punch became more and more off target, and his arm began to swing further away from his body, until he wasn't truly performing a straight punch at all.

"Argh!" Raphael ground out, striking at the dummy with all his strength. But his aim was so distorted that the blow barely glanced off of the stuffed man's shoulder, earning a disinterested waver from his target and nothing more.

"Raphael." Splinter stepped forward and put a hand on his eldest's arm, stopping the little turtle before he could swing again. The old rat shook his head. "Do not swing wildly. You must focus your energy. Otherwise you will hit nothing."

"I'm trying!" Raphael snapped.

"You are not trying hard enough," Splinter told him frankly, knowing as he did that Raphael did not need to be spoken to gently as did some of this other children.

Raphael threw his shoulder forward into a punch—a punch that didn't even touch the dummy this time, though the force of his effort alone made it swing. "How much harder do you want me to hit it?" he demanded.

"It is not about how hard. It is about how. You must focus…"

"Ugh—I'm sick of this!" Raphael shouted, wrenching back from his father's hand. "What kind of pansy training is this supposed to be? I'm not learning anything!"

"Raphael…"

"Forget it, Sensei! I'm outta here!" And with no more warning than that, Raphael stomped his way out of the dojo and into the living room, leaving two pairs of not particularly surprised eyes in his wake.

Leonardo dropped his fighting stance and looked up at his master with a frown, a frown that Splinter was positive the young turtle had picked up from his own expressions. "Raph is out of control. He needs to grow up," Leonardo said, crossing his arms over his chest. Splinter shook his head, glad that Raphael wasn't around to comment on that.

"Your brother is only a little frustrated. I shall speak with him. Please practice your kata in my absence."

Leonardo rolled his eyes a little at that, but he didn't comment and Splinter was already moving out of the room, hoping somewhat belatedly that Raphael had not, in his annoyance, stomped through Michelangelo and Donatello's game and caused any permanent damage to the toaster car. Though he was growing less and less fond of the thing himself, there would be no end of trouble if anything happened to it now.

It was hard to say whether Raphael had ruined the other two's game or not. In any event, he did not seem to have done so violently, but had thrown himself onto the couch in a royal slouch while Michelangelo and Donatello came to sit beside him, the toaster car clutched in Donatello's tentative hands. Seeing that the three were engaged in conversation, Splinter pulled back a step, listening to them out of sight at the edge of the doorway as a sigh escaped him. If Michelangelo was talking to Raphael, irritated as his older brother was, there was bound to be another fight, and the old rat just couldn't handle it at the moment, after two and a half days of putting up with his two astonishingly bad-tempered eldest children.

"I'm sick of those stupid drills," Raphael was saying, throwing the pillows one by one from the couch in an eternal search for the remote. "Not just them. All the pointless stuff we do. I hate training—the whole of it."

Donatello's eyes widened at this pronouncement, filling his little face with wonder and disbelief. "You don't mean that, Raph," he said, turning those big eyes on his brother, but Raphael only huffed, flopping onto his other side and digging into the crack of the couch to yank out the remote.

"Maybe I do. Stupid drills—who needs 'em? I could take a guy six times that size with one fist behind my back."

"Yeah, me, too. If he was tied to a string, waiting to get hit, you mean?" Michelangelo asked.

Raphael looked over at him with no little threat in his eyes, and Splinter was sure that it was only the great coincidence of time and channel, which brought the Power Rangers onto the television screen moments later, that prevented a raised fist on Raphael's part. As it was, the five bright figures—who, it seemed to Splinter, had been on television an awful lot recently—pulled Raphael's attention back to the TV before he could strike out at his brother, though Michelangelo, as usual, looked more than ready to dodge.

"Shut up," was all Raphael said in the end, turning back to the Power Rangers with a focus that made Splinter wonder if he were trying to get hold of his own temper. Of course, Michelangelo had never been good at helping in that endeavor, and he wasn't now, nudging in close to Raphael as he began to laugh at the program playing out in front of them.

"Jeez, look at those corny costumes. How can they even see in those things?"

"They've got eye-holes," Raphael said through his gritted teeth, holding the remote hostage in one clenched fist. Donatello looked between them with worried eyes, holding the toaster car a little closer in his lap.

"Mikey, maybe we should go play somewhere else," Donatello suggested, feeling like a barometer the shortening of Raphael's already lost temper.

"I wasn't talking about their masks," Michelangelo continued, not even acknowledging Donatello's protest. "I meant, look at the glare on all that plastic. Say you're looking for your enemy, and you look across the battlefield and see your buddy instead, it'd be all—ahh! Totally blinded!"

"Shut up," Raphael growled, holding the remote more like a weapon with every passing comment. "You don't know what you're talkin' about. They've got cool costumes."

"Yeah, for plastic people, maybe. Or if you were a cheesy brand mascot like in the commercials." Michelangelo lifted his newest hero in one hand, the clothespin facing the wrong way in his triumphant fist. "Real superheroes wear capes and underwear!"

"Grr…" Raphael sunk deeper in his seat and Donatello scooted away from him, shielding the toaster car with one worried arm. Splinter leaned his head against the doorframe, listening with one ear to Leonardo practicing behind him and with the other to the ongoing squabble in front of him, sighing as Michelangelo's mouth and Raphael's temper chased each other back and forth in their bickering. It seemed that his next to youngest son could only keep his mouth closed for a matter of seconds—and when it came open again, it always seemed to bring trouble with it.

Or that was what Splinter thought, until Michelangelo suddenly turned the conflict around.

"Ha! Look at that lousy hit!" Michelangelo crowed as one of the Power Rangers—the green one, it looked like—tried to flatten an opponent perhaps three times his size and didn't succeed in making so much as a dent. Raphael tensed at the insult, but Michelangelo's next words stopped his tirade before it could begin. "Raph hits me harder than that all the time. Don'tcha, Raph? You're way stronger than that green guy. Even if he is taller than you."

Splinter blinked a little at his son's comments, and so did Raphael—then the eldest of the turtles drew himself up a little straighter in his seat, watching the battle with new eyes. "Well, yeah. I mean, that was wimpy to the core," Raphael said, trying to keep the pride that Michelangelo's opinion—though why Raphael was proud of hitting his brother, Splinter didn't understand—out of his voice. Donatello looked at the two of them in something like shock and then slipped off the couch, perhaps deciding that the floor was a safer seat than next to the flip-flopping temper of Raphael.

A moment passed in a very different silence, one in which suddenly Raphael seemed to be waiting for Michelangelo's mouth to open. Then the camera switched to the red ranger, facing off against an equally large opponent, and Michelangelo let out a cackle, watching in open amusement as the ranger's punch barely turned his opponent's head.

"Ha! Even the red ranger's not that strong. See how he didn't even faze that guy?"

Raphael looked considerably less excited about this comment. "You've got a screw loose, Mikey. Nobody's stronger than the red ranger."

"Sure—you are," Michelangelo said, still oblivious to the way his brother's face lit up at the words. "You were duking it out with that dummy the other day, and one good hit knocked him all the way across the room and into Sensei's throwing stars. The red guy couldn't even do that."

Splinter winced a little at this retelling of how one of their dummys—not the first one—had come to be unusable; Raphael did not. He was too busy absorbing every word of his brother's compliments, though from Michelangelo's face Splinter could see that he spoke now with the same thoughtless honesty as he had in his earlier insults.

Raphael didn't seem to care. "Yeah, you're right, Mikey. That's nothin'. I could do better than that."

"If you ever met the Power Rangers, you could probably beat 'em all," Michelangelo said, growing more interested in his imaginary battle than the battle on the screen. "Beat 'em all and string 'em up by their ankles."

"Stupid," Raphael said, though the fist that found Michelangelo's arm had no true force behind it. "Why'd I want to beat up the Power Rangers? They're the good guys."

"Guess that means you're not," Michelangelo replied, expertly ducking the incoming pillow swing. "That's okay, Raph—I'd rather root for the strong bad guy than the wimpy good guys, anyway."

Seeing that the mood above him seemed to be stabilizing, Donatello raised his voice, too, joining in Michelangelo's movement with far more intention. "You've always been really strong, Raph," he said, and Splinter could see that the timid turtle's words had brought the smile out on Raphael's face, puffing out his little chest with the pride of any eldest child presented with the compliments of their siblings.

"Well, you know…" he said, sweeping a seemingly disinterested hand across his mouth. "It's just somethin' that happens."

Donatello smiled, looking at his next oldest brother in anticipation of the next step in their ego-boosting movement. But Michelangelo was on to a new target now—although, Splinter guessed, no more intentionally than before. "Whoa—look at that bad guy. He really screwed that one up."

Donatello and Raphael turned back to the screen, watching as the tremendous hulk of a villain who was facing off with the red ranger threw all of his weight into a punch and missed, throwing him off his balance and leaving him open for the ranger's quick counter—though, not so quick that he forgot to pose and chastise the forces of evil, Splinter noticed. Donatello didn't seem to find anything noteworthy in this display, but Raphael's shoulders tightened up, as did his face as he watched the red ranger soundly beat his larger opponent into the ground.

"Shoulda watched where he was punching," Michelangelo chirped, swinging his feet. "All that power going to waste, just 'cause he missed by a mile. You could beat him, too, Raph, with aim like that. Him and the Power Rangers. You should pile them all up like they do in the cartoons."

Raphael didn't say anything to this encouragement, watching the fallen villain and triumphant Power Ranger on the screen with new, somehow more sober attention. Splinter watched him with a smile. Then he silently shuffled back into the dojo, watching Leonardo practice with almost unseeing eyes as he cocked his ear for the voice of his eldest in the other room.

"I'll be back, guys."

"Sweet! I get the TV!" Michelangelo sung out, his glee overriding the footsteps that were moving in Splinter and Leonardo's direction. Leonardo paused in his kata as Raphael reappeared in the doorway, and Splinter turned around with a blank expression, keeping his smile carefully to himself.

Michelangelo had such a way with words, somehow. Even when his words were nothing but mindlessly, brutally honest.

"Sensei," Raphael began, planting his feet, "I'm going to do it this time. Watch me."

Leonardo looked just a little put out, though whether at the arrogance in Raphael's voice or just at his brother's return Splinter didn't know. Either way, Splinter nodded to Raphael and moved to stand near him as the eldest turtle took his place in front of a dummy, measuring the target with eyes that were rarely so serious.

Raphael took a deep breath and let it out again—but he hadn't moved yet when a bright voice interrupted them all from the doorway.

"Come on, Raph! Get that guy!" Michelangelo yelled, his superhero clothespin still clutched in one cheering fist.

"You can do it!" Donatello seconded, smiling back at Raphael as their voices returned the arrogance to his face.

"Just pretend he's a Power Ranger!" Michelangelo hinted, at which Splinter could not help shaking his head. But Raphael didn't seem to care, even about the denigration of his heroes. He was grinning too wide for anything to bother him now.

"Just watch this!" he bellowed, his confidence and renewed energy echoing against the concrete walls. Then his fist flew forward, tucked in close to his body just as it should have been, and barreled into the stomach of the dummy.

Splinter smiled and two of his children, at least, cheered aloud—but the dummy did not stick around to see whether Raphael's perfect shot could be repeated. Just like that, the string tethering it to the ceiling snapped, and the stuffed form hurtled toward the back wall, crashing into the practice weapons and sending them in a clatter all over the floor.

Well, most of the dummy did.

"Whoa, awesome!" Michelangelo cried, pointing to the spot where the target had been. "You ripped off his head, Raph!"

"That's creepy," Donatello said, inching back as he looked at the lonely head now suspended from the ceiling.

Leonardo crossed his arms over his chest. "Raph! You did it again!"

Raphael was still grinning. "You just wish you could do it once," he replied, openly pleased with the current of annoyance that slipped across Leonardo's face.

And although Splinter was pleased with Raphael's progress—and not only that, but with the knowledge that Michelangelo had the ability to inspire so much will in his eldest brother and the reminder of how much Raphael truly cared about his brothers' opinions of him—he had to wonder why it was that a happy Raphael was almost as much trouble, if not more, than an unhappy Raphael. What tack was he to take with that?

.x.

"Ha ha! You think to fight me, you pathetic power ranger? Be warned! I am the great and powerful Michelangel-Oz!"

"Mikey, the great and powerful Oz wasn't the bad guy in that movie," Donatello corrected him, seated to one side of the living room center where Michelangelo and Raphael had decided to hold their battle to end all battles. The youngest turtle still had the toaster car in his arms, though he looked not a little put out as he watched his brothers play a far more physical game.

"Yeah, well he shoulda been," Michelangelo returned, only glancing at Donatello before he focused on adjusting his towel cape. "Come on—who's afraid of some old lady with a broom? The great and powerful Oz was way more of a challenge."

"Oh, yeah? Well no floating green head's gonna scare the Power Rangers!" Raphael announced, hands posed on his hips as he stood, dressed all in red with a mask made out of a plaid handkerchief, on the back of the couch. "Michelangel-Oz is going down, and I don't need some sissy dog to pull his curtain neither."

From his place in the rocking chair, a book he hadn't gotten back to in far too long spread across his lap, Splinter looked up at his children and sighed a little, not for their game—which was really the same game they'd been playing for the last two or three days—but for the mess he knew his living room was going to be when Raph the Red Ranger and the great and powerful Michelangel-Oz got through with it. It hadn't been in his original understanding, but Splinter was growing more and more sure, as time went on, that a game just wasn't any fun for Raphael and Michelangelo if destruction and upsetting the furniture didn't come along with it.

As for his last child… well, he hadn't seen too much of Leonardo in the last few days, ever since the other three got caught up in their ongoing Power Rangers versus Michelangelo's Villain of Choice showdown. But he wasn't overly worried about it. Leonardo was close to perfecting his newest kata—well, as close to perfecting as a child his age could come—and it was not unusual to see less of him at that stage of training.

Of course, with all the trouble Raphael, Michelangelo and, by proxy, Donatello were getting up to, Splinter was just as happy to have one son out of the way.

"You're goin' down, headman!" Raphael taunted, jumping down off of the couch.

"That's what you think!" Michelangelo cried, cackling as he pointed at Donatello and flipped the corner of his cape. "But that's because I haven't unveiled my secret weapon! Donny, prepare the toaster car. We're going to launch superhero guy right between his dorky, plaid-covered eyes!"

"Uh, right!" Donatello replied, obviously surprised by his sudden participation in the game. The little turtle scrambled to get himself into position, shoving the clothespin superhero upside-down into the slot of the toaster car, but Raphael just snorted, confident arms crossed over his red-clad chest.

"Ha—you can't use the toaster car this time around. Superhero guy's one of the good guys. No good guy would ever attack the Power Rangers. Donny's gotta be on my side for this one."

Splinter raised an eyebrow at that, slightly surprised at Raphael's logic. "What?" Donatello asked, looking more than a little distressed at the suggestion that he would have to join his eldest—and far less complimentary—brother's team for the remainder of the game.

He gazed up at Michelangelo with hopeful eyes, undoubtedly hoping that his next eldest brother would think of a way for the clothespin hero to stay on his side for the ensuing battle—one of those twists of creativity that usually left Leonardo so lost when he tried to join in Michelangelo's games. But Michelangelo only clutched his head in shocked hands, his face twisted in playful horror.

"Oh, no! And here I left super-villain guy in his pillow robot all the way back in the kitchen!" Michelangelo shook a fist at Raphael, his cape getting tangled around his arm and disrupting whatever effect the motion might have had. "Curse you, Power Rangers! If I had known how tricky you were, I woulda stayed up all night making flying monkey clothespins!"

"But Mikey, the flying monkeys didn't work for the wizard of Oz, either," Donatello cut in, inching closer to Michelangelo as though proximity might protect him from having to change sides. His brother only shrugged.

"Sure they did. I mean, who else is going to hire those freaky-looking guys, after the witch dies?"

"But the wizard went back to Kansas," Donatello tried again, looking more put out but less confused than Leonardo usually did when he got into these discussions with Michelangelo.

Michelangelo was unconvinced. "Bet not. Bet that was all an act he put on so Dorothy'd take her dog home and leave him alone. So when he comes back 'n rules over Oz like the evil wizard he really was, he can hire the monkeys." The little turtle shook his head. "But I didn't make any monkeys, so it doesn't really matter. You better go over with Raph, Donny—we gotta play by the rules."

"What rules? I want to be on your team," Donatello whined, pressing the toaster car to his chest. Michelangelo clicked his tongue.

"The rules of superhero-hood, Donny. Good guys never attack other good guys, unless the bad guy's played some kind of trick on both of them and they think they're fighting bad guys. But the great and powerful Michelangel-Oz didn't, so you and superhero guy go be on Raph's team."

Donatello looked decidedly put out at this—so much so that Splinter thought for a moment he might start to cry, especially when Raphael moved forward and grabbed him by the arm, steering his little brother over to his side of the playing field. "Don't worry, Donny—we've got him for sure now," Raphael announced, which lightened Donatello's expression only a little.

"I don't want to get him," Donatello protested loyally, refusing to meet Raphael's eyes. But Splinter knew that Donatello, like all of his children, liked to be on the winning side, and it was probably Raphael's confidence about winning that had toned Donatello's displeasure down a few notches.

As for Splinter himself, he wouldn't have discounted Michelangelo yet—his next to youngest had a way with getting out of difficult situations.

"Prepare to get a clothespin-whippin', ya scrawny wizardman!" Raphael shouted, even his mask doing little to dampen the battle cry. "Donny, aim and fire!"

"Fine, fine," Donatello mumbled, turning his most recent creation reluctantly on its greatest admirer. Before he could fire, however, Michelangelo held up both hands, as though in the surrender Splinter doubted he would ever make.

"Just a minute! The great and powerful Michelangel-Oz has lost his toaster car, but he's not gonna lose this battle! Just give me a minute to get my even more secret weapon."

Without waiting for permission or reply from his opponents, Michelangelo dashed out of the living room, his favorite new superhero skidding after him across the carpet. Raphael cursed under his breath but Splinter still heard him, giving his eldest son a look as the little turtle pointed toward the fallen superhero.

"Quick, reload it, Donny! We've gotta nail him as soon as he comes in!"

Donatello scampered across the room, the urgency of his brother's command putting a little extra adrenaline into his steps, but he had barely scooped the clothespin into one hurried hand before Michelangelo reappeared in the doorway, pushing—to his brothers' surprise but not to Splinter's—Leonardo somewhat dazedly in front of him.

"Mikey, what's going on? I was practicing—"

"You've gotta be on my team, Leo! Otherwise it's two-on-one!" Michelangelo explained, dragging his brother back to his side of the battlefield. "And they've got the toaster car, too!"

"What? Why's Donny on Raph's team?" Leonardo wanted to know, watching in no little confusion as Donatello raced back across the room toward Raphael's frantic waving.

"Oh—'cause he's using the toaster car, and superhero guy's got to be on the good guys' team. But now the great and powerful Michelangel-Oz lost his secret weapon, and—"

"Wait," Leonardo interrupted, pulling back on the arm that Michelangelo had been clinging to the whole time. "Why aren't you on the good guys' team?"

"Somebody's got to be the bad guy, Leo," Michelangelo explained with a shrug, to which Leonardo crossed his arms decidedly over his chest.

"No they don't," he said, and Splinter smiled to himself at the insistence in that little voice. Michelangelo rolled his eyes.

"Well, okay, they don't _got_ to," he amended, keeping a watchful eye on Donatello as he skittered into a kneel beside his toaster. "But I got pretty tired of playing tea party with Donny's stuffed animals a couple years ago. I mean, unless he has a Kool-Aid party again, like that one time, and everybody agrees to wear white shirts, you can count me out."

"Fire already, Donny!" Raphael called, pulling Michelangelo and Leonardo's eyes briefly back to their brothers' struggles to load the toaster car on the opposite side of the room. Then they looked back to each other, Michelangelo fidgeting as his opponents increased speed.

"Running out of time here, Leo. You with me, or you against me?"

Leonardo gave his brother a severe look. "I don't want to be on the bad guys' team."

"But you're willing to let them take me down two on one? Unfair numbers? Greater firepower?" Michelangelo demanded, his voice rising a little with every clause. Leonardo shifted his feet.

"Well, I—"

"Okay, never mind. You don't have to decide. Just stand right here for a sec."

With that Michelangelo ducked behind his brother—and at the exact same moment, Donatello finally managed to jam the clothespin missile into his toaster catapult and hit the launch lever. The clothespin arched across the room, accompanied by Raphael's gleeful shout—but he wasn't half so gleeful a moment later, when the missile, which Donatello had aimed exceptionally well, smacked Leonardo right between the eyes, making it not one centimeter past Michelangelo's barricade.

Leonardo gasped, not in pain but in surprise as the clothespin fell back to the floor. Michelangelo cackled and jumped out from behind him, slinging an arm over Leonardo's shocked shoulders.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Leo, the living brick wall! Thanks, bro," he added, turning back to Leonardo with a tremendous grin on his face. "Next time I need to crush the forces of good, I'll just ask you to choose between two morally questionable options and use you for a shield while you're thinking about it. Evil totally appreciates your indecision."

Leonardo's jaw fell open at this, and Splinter put a hand over his mouth, trying to hide the smile that his second son's absolute horror brought to his old, wise face. Then he stood up out of his rocking chair and moved to take Leonardo by the shoulders, biting down the impulse to laugh, just a little, as that appalled gaze turned up to find his face.

"Come, my son," he encouraged, leading Leonardo toward the dojo again. "You have been practicing all morning. Let me see your kata."

"Thanks again, Leo!" Michelangelo called, waving one arm over his head. Then he leapt for the couch and scooped up the pillows, whooping as he threw them down on Raphael. "Now for the great and powerful Michelangel-Oz's great and powerful counterattack!"

"Who needs some scrawny clothespin anyway?" Raphael bellowed, grabbing a pillow of his own and beating Michelangelo around the knees. Splinter sighed to himself. But he had other concerns at the moment than stopping their pillow fight, so he kept his attention on Leonardo and continued his progress into the dojo, leading the flabbergasted little turtle by the shoulders.

The dojo was quiet and peaceful, out of the range of all but the echoes of the large-scale war taking place in the living room—but in spite of the silence and the fact that he might have spent more time here than in any other room in the house, Leonardo still had not regained his composure, his mind clearly occupied behind his troubled eyes. Splinter watched him for a moment without speaking, waiting for the little turtle to get his thoughts together. At last Leonardo looked up at his father, his mouth twisted into a solemn frown.

"Master Splinter, am I a bad person?"

Splinter blinked. "What? Of course not, my son. Why do you ask that?"

Leonardo grimaced. "I helped evil win, because I couldn't make up my mind."

Splinter shook his head at his characteristically serious child, resting a soft hand on Leonardo's shoulder. "It was only a game, Leonardo."

Leonardo shook his head back. "Evil shouldn't win, Sensei. Not even in a game."

Splinter had to smile at that, and he patted the little turtle on the back as he did so, to show that his smile was an encouragement for the dedication to mores that Leonardo had always shown and not any form of laughing at him. "Do not let it bother you, my son. Come—show me your kata. I wish to see how you have improved."

Leonardo did as he was told, but he was still distracted by the former incident and it showed in his performance, his stances slipping from the technical perfection Splinter was used to expecting of him. Leonardo must have known it, too, because his expression only grew more somber as the exercise progressed, until Splinter wondered whether it had been a good thing to ask of him in the first place. He watched to the end all the same, nodding his head as Leonardo assumed the final stance and froze, waiting for his master's permission to relax.

"Enough." Splinter nodded to himself and to his son, for all the good it did. "Very well done, Leonardo. Show me again once before bedtime. I think you are ready to learn a new form tomorrow."

"Thank you, Sensei," Leonardo said, bowing as he was supposed to. But he didn't seem as enthusiastic as he usually was when he received compliments for his progress, and Splinter rubbed his chin, wondering whether words were the right strategy to take in trying to lift the little turtle's mood.

"Leonardo—"

"Sensei! Sensei, Raph stepped on my car!"

With this great keening cry, Donatello came winging into the dojo as though his feet were on fire, cutting off the words Splinter hadn't quite figured out yet and drawing two pairs of wary eyes to his tearful ones.

"He stepped on it!" Donatello repeated, latching onto his father's arm and pointing an accusing finger at the two turtles who were only a few steps behind him on their way into the dojo. Raphael paused at the accusation, and then he huffed, holding up the toaster car with one dismissive hand.

"Come off it, Donny. It still works," Raphael grumbled through his mask, shaking the toaster thoughtlessly back and forth. Michelangelo tried to take it from his brother, but Raphael held it out of reach, his glare fixed on the youngest turtle who was glaring right back at him.

"Yeah, but now there's a dent in it!" Donatello wailed, tugging on Splinter's sleeve with all his might. "There's a dent! And Raph doesn't even care!"

"Well, what were you expecting, Donny?" Michelangelo asked, looking less annoyed about the damage to his car than Splinter would have expected, given his attachment to the refurbished toaster over the previous week. "Raph's like a dinosaur—his brain's so small, he can't even tell what he's stepping on."

"Hey!" Raphael snarled, turning toward Michelangelo as though he might smash the toaster into his head. Splinter darted forward and grabbed it from him before anger could get the best of his eldest, holding the toaster above the heads of three upset children as his eyes slid over their varying expressions and landed, last, on his next to oldest son, who had gone back to doing his kata.

Make that four upset children.

"That is enough, all of you. I can see that you have had far too much time to play with this car over the past days," Splinter said, setting the confiscated contraption on the dojo's highest shelf, where he kept the weapons his sons were not ready for. "We shall do a little training now, and see if that helps us get along."

"But I want the toaster car," Donatello whined, reaching up on his tiptoes as though a few more inches might bring the shelf within reach.

Splinter shook his head. "The toaster car is in time-out, Donatello. You and your brothers are going to practice combination attacks now. Please line up so that we may begin training."

"The great and powerful Michelangel-Oz needs no training!" Michelangelo declared, flipping his cape back as he struck a pose. Splinter raised an eyebrow and tugged on the towel until it released, leaving a startled young turtle in his wake.

"Michelangelo, however, is not so lucky. Come, all of you. Be seated."

With no end of grumbling, shoving and whining, they did as they were asked, although Splinter could see that Michelangelo and Raphael, who had unfortunately taken seats next to each other, were already off task, all manner of whispered threats to the Power Rangers and the wizard of Oz, respectively, flying between them. Splinter shook his head but ignored them, content to let those chips fall where they might.

"This will be a ten-step combination attack. I expect you to focus on form, not power or speed." Well, there went whatever he had retained of Raphael and Michelangelo's attention. "Your partner will hold the pad, and you will perform a specific series of attacks. Like so…"

Splinter stood back a pace and faced the far wall, calling out the names of each strike as he completed it. Not that it mattered much, he was sure. Donatello's eyes were still fixed on the toaster car, stolen away from him by the height of the shelf, and Michelangelo and Raphael had begun to elbow each other, their conflict from the living room spilling over into training.

But Leonardo seemed to be listening, his interest growing as he watched his master's movements, and for his sake Splinter added a backward thrust kick to his original sequence of attacks, a move that required enough balance and concentration that Leonardo was the only turtle to master it so far.

Donatello was paying enough attention, at least, to get mad about that. "That's not fair!" the youngest turtle started up immediately. "You know only Leo can do that kick!"

The old rat turned back to his children and crossed his arms over his robe. "It will do all of you good to practice it. Now. Do you understand what you are to do?"

"Yes, Sensei," said one voice, which belonged to the only pair of eyes that had been watching the entire thing.

"No," Donatello said, slipping down into a sulk.

"Raphael? Michelangelo?" Splinter pressed, coming to stand directly in front of his troublemakers.

"What?" Raphael asked, distracted from his fight with Michelangelo by his father's approach.

"Absolutely!" Michelangelo answered, flashing his father a thumbs-up. Donatello just maintained his pout. Splinter rubbed his forehead.

"Very well. Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello. Please begin."

"What?" The first cry was Donatello's, but all four turtles seemed surprised, looking up at their master's unusual choice of training pairs. "But I always train with Leo," Donatello continued, sulking under his wide eyes.

Splinter nodded. "And it is good to train with other partners on occasion, so that we do not get used to a particular opponent." And also, in this case, so that Raphael and Michelangelo didn't help each other fake their way through the instructions they hadn't been listening to.

"But Raph's too rough! He hits too hard," Donatello persisted. Splinter sent his youngest son a short frown.

"This is not sparring practice. Raphael will be hitting the pad only. I am not going to tell you again, Donatello."

Donatello gave one more half-hearted whine, but Splinter was already busying himself with the pads, not interested in hearing any more complaints. He handed one pad to Donatello and the other to Leonardo, and then stood back with his hands on his hips.

"You may begin."

"So… how did this go?" Raphael mumbled to himself, eyeing Donatello and the pad with a calculating stare. Donatello sniffed.

"Don't ask me. I wasn't listening."

Raphael scowled at his younger brother, tapping one foot against the floor. "Then what good are ya?"

"A lot more good that some clod who can't even watch where he's putting his feet!" Donatello charged, before he ducked back behind the pad. Raphael growled but didn't hit him, wary of his master's eyes on him.

"Oh, whatever," the little turtle growled after a moment, launching toward Donatello with a front snap kick—which was certainly not the first move in Splinter's sequence. The old rat shook his head. Then he turned around to check on his other two children, who were just watching each other on the other side of the dojo.

"Hey, Leo," Michelangelo whispered after a moment, his voice as usual far too loud to miss. "Give me a hint here. What's the first move?"

Leonardo crossed his arms over his chest. "You should have been listening."

"Yeah, but I wasn't," Michelangelo replied, not sounding contrite in the least. "Come on, bro—help me out here. Just the first move. I'll remember it after that."

Leonardo's eyes said he didn't believe that, but he held up the pad all the same, his murmur barely loud enough to reach his brother. "Reverse punch."

"Reverse punch," Michelangelo repeated, performing the indicated attack. Leonardo stepped back in preparation for the next move, but Michelangelo didn't follow him, paused with fist extended. "Reverse punch. Okay, then what?"

"Mikey…" Leonardo started.

"Just one more," Michelangelo promised. "I caught the end of it. I'm sure."

Leonardo sighed. "Back leg wheel kick."

"Right," Michelangelo said, winking as he did as instructed. Leonardo waited for another strike and Michelangelo waited for his brother to speak, and a moment passed in silence before the younger turtle tipped his head to the side. "Then… reverse punch?"

"No."

"Back flip?"

"No."

"Back flip with a reverse punch?"

"Mikey," Leonardo said again, his eyes narrowing in his serious young face. Michelangelo threw up his hands.

"You know, Leo, this might be easier if you'd just tell me what to do. Just say the moves for me—I'll do it exactly like you say."

Leonardo's forehead wrinkled, bothered like the hand that was fidgeting at his side. "Why would you listen to me?"

"Why wouldn't I listen to you, dude?" Michelangelo returned, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "You always know what we're supposed to do."

"No, I don't," Leonardo said, the shadow of the afternoon passing over his face.

Michelangelo almost laughed. "Well, even when you don't, you're way closer than the rest of us. Who else am I supposed to ask?" As if to prove a point, he turned to look over his shoulder, calling back to Raphael and Donatello in their unscripted, one-sided assault on the pad. "Hey, Raph, Donny! What's the third move?"

"How should I know?" Donatello snapped.

"Who cares?" Raphael shouted back.

"See?" Michelangelo concluded, facing his partner once again. "I don't know, and Donny doesn't know, and Raph never knows. So give me some guidance here, Leo—I'll follow your orders to the letter, I swear."

Splinter hadn't expected Michelangelo's begging, and on a subject that would benefit no one but himself, to make an impression on Leonardo—but as he watched, he saw his second son's face lose a few of its solemn lines, and the little turtle took a step back, steadying himself for the incoming impact.

"Jab, stagger-step front snap kick."

"You got it!" Michelangelo said, launching himself into the attacks. Before he had even started the second one, Leonardo had his next set of instructions out, moving the pad carefully into his brother's range.

"Coming down spear-hand strike, stepping forward elbow strike."

"Watch your nose!" Michelangelo called, swinging his elbow for Leonardo's face. But the pad was already there, and so was his brother's voice, clear and collected as he ducked Michelangelo's arm and slipped in behind him.

"Turn, back fist, stepping forward arm break. Side snap kick into reverse punch into back thrust kick."

"Coming atcha!" Michelangelo shouted, throwing himself just a little too heartily into the last move of the combination. Splinter was not surprised to see his next to youngest son lose his balance and topple over, although—as usual for Michelangelo—he managed to recover into a handstand and hold it for three seconds before collapsing on his head. The little turtle shook himself, looking up as Leonardo came to stand beside him and offered a hand up.

"You always overbalance on that kick, Mikey. You've got to keep your weight over that knee, okay?"

"Roger that, fearless leader!" Michelangelo replied, saluting as he was pulled to his feet. "That worked out pretty well. I'm just gonna stop listening altogether in training now, and you can tell me what to do. How's that for a deal?"

"What am I getting out of this deal?" Leonardo asked, but Splinter could see in his eyes that Michelangelo's compliments—unintentional and self-serving as usual—had not slipped by him. Leonardo's shoulders had lost their slump, and the confidence was back in his eyes, as though Michelangelo's reassurance that he trusted his brother's instructions was all it had truly taken to fix the little turtle's shaken faith in his decisions. And when Leonardo took his turn attacking, moving with so much speed and certainty that Michelangelo lost his footing and tumbled back into a somersault, Splinter knew he was not the only one who could see the effects of that assurance.

"Wow," Michelangelo said, kicking his feet where they stretched over his upside-down head. "If we ever get in a fight, remind me to hide behind him."

Splinter imagined he was not the only one, either, who caught Leonardo's smile. And he was not the only one to note that Michelangelo was the one who had put it there—who could put smiles onto all of his brothers' faces, regardless of the preoccupations that the world threw at them. Splinter looked at the brilliant smile on Michelangelo's face and had to smile himself, because that was what Michelangelo did to everyone around him, whether they welcomed it or not. It was a gift and a blessing he would never forget.

_End Chapter 18_


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been reading this story – it was written for a friend, but I'm glad to see more than one person seemed to get some enjoyment out of it. I hope you enjoy the last chapter as well. It ended up a lot longer than I intended, but I enjoyed writing it myself, so maybe that's not a bad thing. Anyway, thanks again.

Special note: … If you haven't figured out the age order yet, I can't help you.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Splinter imagined he was not the only one, either, who caught Leonardo's smile. And he was not the only one to note that Michelangelo was the one who had put it there—who could put smiles onto all of his brothers' faces, regardless of the preoccupations that the world threw at them. Splinter looked at the brilliant smile on Michelangelo's face and had to smile himself, because that was what Michelangelo did to everyone around him, whether they welcomed it or not. It was a gift and a blessing he would never forget._

*

"Hey, Sensei. Whatcha got there?"

With an old smile, a tired and nostalgic smile on his lips, Splinter turned to face his next to youngest, watching Michelangelo's face light up as the stack of paper was held out to him. Michelangelo took them and then he let out a laugh, the familiar sound calling all of his brothers into the doorway of the broken room.

"Wow! Get a load of these things."

"Are these pictures of ours?" Donatello asked, tugging a sheet or two out of Michelangelo's hands. Behind him, Raphael and Leonardo shared a look, bags of supplies strung over their strong shoulders.

"Hey, hold one up," Raphael requested, shifting his load. "Those've gotta be old as heck."

"Yeah, just look at these," Donatello said, fanning a spread of the drawings across his excited hands. "Where did you find these, Master Splinter?"

"Oh… around," Splinter said, bending down to retrieve his walking stick as Michelangelo flicked picture after picture to the floor.

"Boring, boring, boring—ah! Now _here's_ a quality piece of art!" Michelangelo announced, brandishing a picture of a rainbow crocodile boarding a flying saucer. "Impeccable design, nice wardrobing on that croc—and look! The ship even has a Starfleet insignia for accuracy."

"Funny. I don't remember them using any flying saucers in that show," Raphael said.

"This one must be mine… hey, look, Leo. I bet I know whose this one is," Donatello teased, holding up a practically empty page for his brother to see. And if the shadows did not deceive him, Splinter thought he saw a little smile wind its way across Leonardo's face before his second son turned back to the scattered light of their ruined lair.

"Come on, guys. It's about time we got moving. We've got to get this stuff back home."

_Home_. In some ways, for Splinter, this would always be home. In other ways, home had been taken from them years before, when the tendrils of the Foot first brushed against their quiet subterranean life. But that was only a passing whim. True home was in these pictures, and the memories they inspired—true home was in the four faithful hearts standing beside him, beating just a little more brightly every day.

"Hey, Raph—guess what I just learned. Nothing's changed in ten years. You're still a crappy drawer."

"All right, knucklehead. You need a few good whacks to the skull before we load you up like a pack mule?"

"Pack mule? That's definitely your job, Raph. Brains before brawn, remember?"

Michelangelo ran, and Raphael ran after him, the fierce smile on his face belying his open threat. Donatello rolled his eyes and scooped the last of the forgotten pictures into his hands, setting off after his brothers at a rolling stride, and Leonardo turned back to look at his master, the shadows and the cult of memory softening the lines of his warrior's face.

"Ready to go, Sensei?"

_Ready, Sensei?_

Splinter smiled. "Yes. Yes, I am, my son." And he never looked back.

_The End_


End file.
